JUDGMENT

Krishna S. Dixit, J. - What Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in his book 'The Common Law' (1881) at the very first page had said, should prelude this judgment:

'The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In order to know what it is, we must know what it has been, and what it tends to become...'

2. The estranged spouses are fighting this legal battle. Respondent - wife has filed MC No.1761/2018 u/s. 27(1)(a) & (d) of the Special Marriage act, 1954 r/w Sec.18 of the Foreign Marriages act, 1969 seeking a decree for dissolution of marriage and for the retention of child custody. Petitioner - husband had filed application in I.a.No.4 u/s. 151 of CPC, 1908 to dismiss/reject the divorce peti