Family, Marriage & Divorce

The Supreme Court (SC) in Amardeep Singh v Harveen Kaur [(2017) 8 SCC] examined and decided whether the minimum period of six months stipulated under Section 13B (2) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HNA) for a motion for passing decree of divorce on the basis of mutual consent is mandatory or can be relaxed in any exceptional situations.

When a senior citizen approaches a writ court to direct the eviction of his son and daughter-in-law from a shared household, it must be viewed from the prism of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This is the remark that the Calcutta High Court made on 23rd July 2021 in the case Ramapada Basak & Anr v. State of West Bengal & Ors while deciding a plea by two senior citizens (petitioners) seeking the eviction of the son and daughter-in-law from their residence.

Divorced Hindu spouses, on getting a decree of divorce, can remarry: if the parties have no right to appeal as in the case of mutual consent divorce if the time for right of appeal has expired without the parties filing an appeal or if the court dismissed the appeal filed before it (Section 15 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 (HMA) Therefore a divorce decree holder, who is eager to marry another person as soon as possible, needs to know when the period for filing ends. One law says its 30 days but another law says it is 90 days. The Supreme Court in 2002 and many High Courts in later years directed the government of India to bring an end to this confusion but nothing has happened.

Husband will get maintenance A deserving husband of a woman married under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 has every right to get maintenance. But no other law of similar kind…

The Section 15 of the Hindu Marriage Act is the provision that deals with the eligibility of a divorced person to remarry after the issue of a divorce decree by the trial court. After the decree of divorce, both the parties have to wait at least for 90 days for getting married with someone else again.

A divorced woman, who files an application before the Magistrate court as an aggrieved person under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DV Act), can claim a bunch of remedies, except residence in a shared household.

Cruelty is an adequate ground for dissolving a marriage solemnized under a valid law, on a petition filed by either of the party in marriage. But what constitutes cruelty is not spelt out in law. This creates some confusion among the stakeholders of divorce petition and they bring in anything and everything under the sun as an instance of cruelty to get a quick divorce which the law has never envisaged at all.