29 years on, 80-yr-olds get divorced

Fifty-seven years of marriage is something couples cherish. But not if 29 of those years were spent fighting each other in courts trying to get divorced.

Fifty-seven years of marriage is something couples cherish. But not if 29 of those years were spent fighting each other in courts trying to get divorced.

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The battle of a Delhi couple — the husband is 83 and the wife 80 — ended on Thursday when the Delhi high court finally ended their marriage.

Pawan, a CPWD employee, married Bharti, a teacher, in 1953. In 1979, he left her after their relations soured. He told the court it was his wife's greed that forced them to part ways.

When Bharti's brother got a DDA flat in south Delhi's Munirka in 1979, she allegedly asked Pawan to make all the payments and the couple moved in with their 25-year-old daughter. But a few months later, she forced him to leave.

Pawan filed for divorce in 1982 citing desertion and in 1994, a trial court granted it. Bharti challenged this in the high court, saying that the trial court did not hear her out properly.

However, the high court dismissed her plea, saying Pawan had successfully proved the grounds of desertion and accepted his argument that her greed had led to the divorce.