The Supreme Court has held that continuing in a marriage which has broken down irretrievably amounts to cruelty, which is a ground for divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act.
A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and J.B. Pardiwala read the ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’ into the ground of ‘cruelty’ for divorce under the Act.
“A marriage which has broken down irretrievably, in our opinion, spells cruelty to both the parties, as in such a relationship each party is treating the other with cruelty. It is therefore a ground for dissolution of marriage under Section 13 (1) (ia) of the Act,” Justice Dhulia observed in a recent judgment.
The court defined an “irretrievable marriage is a marriage” as a situation in which the husband and wife have been living separately for a considerable period and there was “absolutely no chance of their living together again”.
Irretrievable breakdown of marriage by itself is not a ground for divorce under the Act, and hence, the court has interpreted cruelty to include a broken marriage while taking into consideration the plight of a couple forced to live a loveless relationship.
Cruelty is determined by examining the entire matrimonial relationship. “Cruelty may not be in a violent act or acts but in a given case has to be gathered from injurious reproaches, complaints, accusations, taunts, etc,” the court observed.
The judgment came in the case of a Delhi-based couple who have been living separately for 25 years while burdening each other with multiple litigations. The court said the couple had not witnessed a moment of peace for the last 25 years. Dissolving the marriage, the court said theirs was a marital relationship only on paper.
