The Supreme Court recognizes irretrievable breakdown of marriage as grounds for divorce, emphasizing mutual consent and fair considerations for children and spousal support.

ORDER :

1. The marriage was solemnized according to Hindu rites between the parties on 09.11.2008.

2. One girl child Mannat was born on 07.09.2010 and a son named, Kushagra was born on 20.02.2013. It appears that soon thereafter, the relationship between the parties soured and in the year 2013 itself a divorce petition was filed by the appellant at the Family Court, Jhajhar. In terms of the judgment dated 25.10.2016, the decree of divorce was granted under Section 13 of the HINDU MARRIAGE ACT , 1955 on grounds of cruelty.

3. The respondent, aggrieved by the same, preferred an appeal before the High Court of Punjab & Haryana. The appeal has been allowed by the judgment dated 16.11.2019 of the Division Bench.

4. We may note an aspect relevant which also forms, in same way, the basis of the judgment by the Division Bench. That is, that the appellant husband has a qualification of BA and works as a Head Constable. On the other hand, the respondent’s qualification is of BCA, MCA, MTech, M. Phil and she has got enrolled for Phd. This is the reason that the High Court opined that apparently the appellant is of a parochial mind set and the travel of the respondent wife along with colleagues is cited as a mental cruelty ground. It has also taken note of the fact that at the time of marriage it was known that the respondent-wife was a Lecturer in a college.

5. We have heard learned counsel for parties.

6. We have noticed the factum of the parties living separately for a decade. The matter was referred to the Supreme Court Mediation Center. However, no final settlement worked out. We called upon the parties to file the affidavits of income and assets.

7. On 01.05.2023, we noticed that this is clearly a case of irretrievable breakdown of marriage and will be covered by the view expressed by this Court in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan – 2023 (6) SCALE 402 that the continuation of marriage itself becomes meaningless. In fact, there is consensus ad idem that the appropriate course would be to give a mutual consent divorce on grounds of irretrievable breakdown.

8. We may notice that insofar as the children are concerned, the daughter is staying with the appellant while the son is staying with the respondent. The daughter is about 13 years old now and the son is 10 years old. We did try to work out an arrangement where at least the children meet, even if their parents appear to be at loggerheads. The children were directed to be produced before the Supreme Court Mediation Centre on 15.05.2023. The Mediator was called upon to take the assistance of a Counsellor. The mediation report and the report of the Counsellor are before us. In terms of the report of the Cousellor, we notice that the marriage was actually unstable right from the beginning and the respondent-wife had been living between marital home and her parent’s house even during the period 2009 to 2013. The son was an infant and was taken by the wife at that time. The daughter is in the VIII standard in Kendriya Vidyalaya while the son was studying in the VI standard and has just been shfited from the Government school to a residential school near Rohtak. It was found that the children were familiar to each other and were interacting on equal footing though they wanted to live with their respective parents. Children were found to be mature enough, possibly arising from the rift of the parents and even agreed to meet on different occasions.

9. We may also note that the respondent states that at present she is not worki