Neha Lal Vs Abhishek Kumar (Supreme Court of India)
The Supreme Court considered a transfer petition filed by the wife seeking transfer of a pending perjury application under Section 340 CrPC from the Family Court at Delhi to the Family Court at Lucknow. During the proceedings, the wife also sought dissolution of the marriage under Article 142 of the Constitution on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage. The husband opposed the request, contending that multiple proceedings initiated by the wife had ruined his life, denied the existence of any settlement, opposed dissolution of marriage, and asserted that applications alleging perjury filed by him should continue. Mediation before the Supreme Court did not succeed.
The Court examined the extensive litigation history between the parties, directed both sides to furnish complete details of pending and disposed cases, and further sought verification from the Registrars General of the Delhi High Court and the Allahabad High Court after noticing discrepancies in the lists supplied by the parties. The verified records showed numerous civil and criminal proceedings pending before various courts in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Lucknow and the High Courts, in addition to several cases that had already been disposed of.
Referring to the Constitution Bench decision in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan and other decisions on Article 142, the Supreme Court reiterated that although irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not a statutory ground under the Hindu Marriage Act, it may dissolve a marriage in exercise of its extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction where the marriage has completely failed and continuation of the legal relationship would not serve any purpose. The Court considered that the parties had married on 28 January 2012, lived together for only 65 days, had remained separated for more than a decade, failed in mediation efforts, had no children from the marriage, and had engaged in more than forty litigations against each other. It concluded that there was no possibility of reconciliation and the marriage had irretrievably broken down.
