New Delhi: Granting a divorce to an estranged couple that had been married for less than two years but battling it out legally for eight years, the Supreme Court observed that alimony from a previous divorce was an irrelevant factor in deciding alimony in a second one.
Using a power unique to it under Article 142 of the Constitution—which gives it the discretionary power to do “complete justice” to parties—the court ended a marriage that had “irretrievably broken down”.
It rejected both the husband’s contention of alimony from a previous divorce, as well as the wife’s demand for Rs 12 crore in alimony. “As we noticed at the outset, the alimony received by the respondent (wife) on the dissolution of her first marriage is not a relevant consideration,” the bench ruled.
While rejecting the wife’s Rs 12 crore alimony claim, it observed that she was an engineering graduate with a post-graduate qualification in management as well, and was admittedly working when the husband left their marital home.
The court also denied the wife’s contention that her husband was still employed with Citibank since his LinkedIn profile said so. It said that “we find absolutely no reason to disbelieve the appellant’s (husband’s) contention that he is no more in employment with Citibank. We refuse to place any reliance on the ‘LinkedIn’ profile as produced”.
The court rejected the alimony claim after considering—apart from the fact that the husband was no longer employed—that he was willing to give his flat in Mumbai to his wife, along with two parking spaces.
Taking note of the “matrimonial acrimony”, the three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai observed that for the last eight years, there were multiple legal proceedings pending between the parties, which clearly indicated that their relationship had “irretrievably broken down”.
“We are convinced that the invocation of Article 142 is imperative in the above case to do complete justice to both the parties, on being satisfied that the marriage has been rendered totally unworkable, emotionally dead and beyond salvation,” the court said, relying on its five-judge ruling in Shilpa Sailesh vs Varun Sreenivasan, delivered nearly two years ago.
It also quashed the criminal complaint registered by the wife against the husband and his parents for cruelty and criminal breach of trust.
“The parties were both divorced once and had attempted yet another experiment at marriage, which too failed miserably,” noted the order.
“What remains is only the terms on which the parties could go their separate ways to live their lives independently, without the yoke of a troubled marriage. The terms of the settlement agreed upon, according to us, do justice to the estranged wife and do not unduly burden the husband,” it ruled in its judgment uploaded on the court website Tuesday.
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Can SC grant divorce under Article 142?
Article 142 of the Constitution deals with the top court’s power to do “complete justice” to parties, by passing any order or decree that enables it to do such justice in “any cause or matter pending before it”. Such an order will be enforceable throughout the Indian territory. Essentially, it is power unique to the Supreme Court.
In May this year, the court had used its Article 142 powers to spare a jail term to a convict under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The provision was also used to grant approval to bills pending with Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi in April this year.
In the 2023 Shilpa Sailesh case, the Supreme Court said it could invoke its power under Article 142 to grant divorces where the marriage had irretrievably broken down.
Granting divorce in that case, the court also said that certain parameters should be looked at while doing so, such as whether there is any possibility of cohabitation between the parties, the nature of allegations made, and whether there was a sufficiently long period of separation.
The court said that if facts show that a marriage has “completely failed”, and there is no possibility that the two persons will live together, it can, as a “court of equity”, balance the circumstances, and step in.
Case at hand & court view
In the case at hand, while the husband alleged constant harassment by the wife, causing him to leave their Mumbai home and move to Faridabad to live with his parents and autistic son from his previous marriage, the wife said that the husband engaged in domestic violence and had abandoned her without any means of survival.
In 2017, she filed a criminal complaint against him alleging cruelty and criminal breach of trust, among other offences.
Four years later, in September 2022, the couple entered into a settlement by way of which they agreed to not file any cases against each other. Subsequently, the husband agreed to give the Mumbai apartment to his wife, along with two parking spaces, which he said was worth Rs 4 crore, so that she is not left without a means of survival, according to the court order.
Later though, the husband withdrew his consent for the divorce, saying that his wife was asking for more money, saying she needed it to pay the maintenance costs for the apartment.
The wife sought an encumbrance-free ownership of the apartment, along with Rs 12 crore as alimony, while the husband sought to dissolve the marriage on grounds that it had broken beyond repair.
After looking at the allegations made by the couple against each other, the court said: “Allegations and counter allegations apart, we perceive nothing more than ordinary marital squabbles, skirmishes and bickerings blown out of proportion; often leading to eternal strife, then estrangement and eventually divorce, as has been the trajectory in this case too.”
Taking into consideration the acrimonious relationship between the parties for the last eight years, and the multiple legal proceedings between them, the court said the facts proved the relationship had irretrievably broken down.
Invoking Article 142, the court said that it is important to do justice to both parties in this case. It relied on its 2023 ruling in Shilpa Sailesh to say that Article 142 can be invoked when marriages are rendered “totally unworkable, emotionally dead and beyond salvation”.
It noted that the Mumbai apartment “is a very valuable asset, along with the two car parking areas” and said the gift of the said property by the husband to the wife “would reasonably take care of the respondent-wife even after divorce”.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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