New Delhi: Divorce can be granted to a
couple even if one of the spouse retracts after initially
agreeing for the separation under "mutual consent", the
Supreme Court has ruled.
A bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph
however, ruled that divorce in such exceptional cases cannot
be granted by any other court except the Supreme Court using
its extraordinary power vested under Article 142; but no other
court can grant such relief.
Under Article 142 of the Constitution, the Supreme
Court enjoys extraordinary powers to pass any
order/directions/ judgements to do justice to citizens or any
party in a dispute before the court.
In the present case, the apex court passed the decree
of divorce after noticing that the estranged wife Maya Jain
initially agreed to a divorce on the condition that she would
get certain properties of the husband transferred in her name.
But once the property was transferred in her name, she
withdrew her consent, thus frustrating the efforts of the
husband to obtain divorce.
The wife took the stand that neither she wanted a
divorce nor had the intention to stay with the husband and yet
insisted that she would not allow him to have divorce by
"mutual consent" as initially agreed to by her before the
transfer of the property.
Bureau Report
