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Supreme Court declines man, 89, plea seeking divorce from 82-year-old wife. Here's why
The man had filed the plea before the Supreme Court challenging the decision of Punjab and Haryana HC, which had reversed a Chandigarh district court order.
The Supreme Court has declined a plea filed by an 89-year-old man seeking a divorce from his 82-year-old wife, saying that the institution of marriage is still considered to be a “pious, spiritual and invaluable emotional life net between couples in Indian society”, news agency PTI reported.
The order was passed by a bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi on October 10.
The 89-year-old had filed the plea before the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Punjab and Haryana high court, which had reversed a Chandigarh district court order granting divorce to him in 1996.
The estranged couple had married according to Sikh rites in 1963 in Amritsar and had three children – two daughters and one son. The man is a qualified doctor and retired from the Indian Air Force, while his wife is a former teacher.
The relations between them turned sour when the husband was posted in Madras in January 1984 and the wife did not join him. She preferred to stay initially with her in-laws and later with her son, according to PTI.
The man claims that she “treated him cruelly and deserted him” by not joining him in Madras, and thereafter not taking care of him though he had a heart problem. He also alleged that his wife filed complaints against him before Air Force authorities, maligning his image.
In his plea before the Supreme Court, the man argued that he has been living separately from his wife since 1996 and that their marriage has already been “irretrievably broken down”.
The wife argued that she did not want to die with the stigma of being a “divorcee” and claimed that she had made all efforts to respect her marriage with the octogenarian and that she was still ready to look after her husband with the assistance of her son.
Urging the Supreme Court not to interfere with the order of the high court, she submitted that a mere long period of separation could not be tantamount to an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and that her husband has failed to make out any ground either of 'cruelty' or 'desertion'.
In its order, the Supreme Court noted that several other relationships stem and thrive on the basis of matrimonial relationships in society.
"Therefore, it would not be desirable to accept the formula of 'irretrievable breakdown of marriage' as a strait-jacket formula for the grant of relief of divorce under Article 142 of the Constitution of India," the bench said in its order, according to PTI.
The bench noted the woman all throughout her life has maintained the sacred relationship and has taken care of her three children, despite the fact that her husband exhibited total hostility towards them.
"The respondent (wife) is still ready and willing to take care of her husband and does not wish to leave him alone at this stage of life. She has also expressed her sentiments that she does not want to die with the stigma of being a 'divorcee' woman. In contemporary society, it may not constitute a stigma but here we are concerned with the respondent's own sentiment," the bench wrote.
It added that granting divorce would not be doing complete justice to the parties, but would rather be doing injustice to the woman. "In that view of the matter, we are not inclined to accept the submission of the appellant to dissolve the marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage," the bench wrote.
It also mentioned that considering that the estranged couple are in the "late evening of their lives", the court had expected them to sit together and explore the possibility of an amicable settlement, but added that any such effort failed to bring out any result.
(Inputs from PTI)
