Long period of separation without any hope for reconciliation amounts to cruelty to both the parties, the Court observed.
Observing that courts should not keep alive a marriage that survives only in form, the Supreme Court on Monday (December 15) dissolved the marriage of a couple who had been living separately for more than 24 years. The Court held that the parties’ fundamentally incompatible views on marital life, along with their prolonged unwillingness to adjust or reconcile, amounted to mutual cruelty and resulted in an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.
Placing reliance on decisions including Rakesh Raman v. Kavita (2023), the Court reiterated that “a long period of separation with no reasonable prospect of reconciliation constitutes cruelty to both parties.”
The Court observed that prolonged pendency of matrimonial proceedings merely results in a marriage being sustained on paper. It noted that, where litigation has remained unresolved for a considerable period, severance of marital ties serves the best interests of both the parties and society at large. Holding that no useful purpose would be achieved by keeping such matrimonial disputes pending without granting relief, the Bench of Justices Manmohan and Joymalya Bagchi allowed the husband’s plea and restored the divorce decree passed by the trial court.
The marriage between the appellant-husband and the respondent-wife was solemnised in 2000. The parties separated in November 2001, within a year of the marriage, and have lived apart ever since—nearly 24 years—with no children born out of the wedlock.
The husband first approached the court in 2003 seeking dissolution of the marriage, but the petition was dismissed as premature. He subsequently filed another divorce petition in 2007, which was allowed by the Trial Court on the ground of desertion. However, in 2011, the Gauhati High Court set aside the decree, holding that the wife had sufficient cause to leave the matrimonial home and that the husband was attempting to take advantage of his own wrong. Aggrieved by this decision, the husband approached the Supreme Court in appeal.
Setting aside the High Court’s judgment, Justice Manmohan, writing for the Court, held that the High Court erred in attributing fault between the parties. The Court observed that where spouses have lived apart for nearly 24 years and no children have been born from the wedlock, the question of fault loses relevance. It further held that such an extended period of separation, by itself, constitutes mutual cruelty, warranting the exercise of the Court’s plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice by dissolving the marriage.
“In the case at hand, spouses have strongly held views with regard to the approach towards matrimonial life and they have refused to accommodate each other for a long period of time. Consequently, their conduct amounts to cruelty to each other. This Court is of the view that in matrimonial matters involving two individuals, it is not for the society or for the Court to sit in judgment over which spouses’ approach is correct or not. It is their strongly held views and their refusal to accommodate each other that amounts to cruelty to one another.”, the court said.
The Court drew support from the Constitution Bench decision in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), which clarified that the Court’s power under Article 142 to do “complete justice” is not circumscribed by the fault-based regime governing statutory divorce.
The Court further relied on Kumari Rekha v. Shambhu Saran Paswan (2025), where it was observed that the absence of specific statutory grounds for dissolution of a Hindu marriage does not inhibit this Court from invoking its powers under Article 142, particularly in cases of irretrievable breakdown of marriage.
