A. M. BHATTACHARJEE, J.

( 1 ) THIS decree for dissolution of marriage made by the Additional District Judge in a Divorce Suit under the Indian Divorce Act, 1869, has come, as it must, before us for confirmation under Section 17 of the Act and we confirm the same as we are satisfied that the materials on record would warrant such confirmation. But the manner in which the trial Judge has decided the issues involved has not earned our satisfaction and we would accordingly like to draw the attention of the learned Judge to the fact that trial of matrimonial cases, even if undefended as the present one, is a matter, not of easy insouciance, but of most anxious advertence.

( 2 ) I have, however, my own doubts as to whether the provisions of Section 17 of the Indian Divorce Act requiring confirmation of the decree of the trial court by the High Court should any longer be retained. A decree for dissolution of marriage among the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, among the Parsis under the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936, among the Muslims under the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 are made by the District Courts and under the last mentioned Act, even by courts of lower rank and all such decrees operate with the fullest efficacy without any confirmation from the High Court. It is, therefore, difficult to appreciate the retention of the provisions of Section 17 of the Divorce Act providing that the Christian couples, even after obtaining a decree for dissolution from the District Court, may be after a long-drawn and strenuous litigation, must still wait for confirmation thereof from the High Court before those decrees can be complete and binding. These provisions of Section 17, even assuming that they had their days when enacted in the mid-nineteenth Century, have probably outlived their purposes, particularly in the context of the later enactment's relating to matrimonial laws governing the other communities and referred to hereinabove and only result in protracting and prolonging the litigation, even where none of the parties is in a mood to have a further review or reconsideration of their case by any higher Court. All these considerations led the Legislature of the State of Uttar Pradesh to do away with these provisions in Section 17 of the Divorce Act by a State Amendment Act being Act No. 30 of 1957. We are inclined to think that our Parliament, or the State Legislatures (Marriage and Divorce being matters in the Concurrent List) should very seriously consider the question of introducing similar amendments in the Divorce Act of 1869 to bring it in harmonious conformity with other analogous enactment's on the subject governing the other communities in India and we are glad to note that a Special Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, while disposing of a confirmation proceeding under Section 17 of the Act in Neena v. John Parmer AIR 1985 Madh Pra 85 at p. 87 (FB), has also made recommendation to that effect in emphatic terms. Whatever doubts there may still be about substantive due process, procedural dud process or procedural reasonableness has doubtlessly been made a part of our Constitutional Law by our Apex Court since the decision in Maneka Gandhi AIR 1978 SC 597 and reference may also be made to the later decisions in Bachan Singh AIR 1980 SC 1355 and in Muthu AIR 1983 SC 473 and to other post-Maneka decisions for the re-affirmation of this position. Have not the Christian spouses been denied procedural reasonableness and due process by these provisions of Section 17 providing for compulsory confirmation hearing, in the context of the spouses belonging to other communities whose matrimonial proceedings are not subjected to any such further hearing?

( 3 ) BEFORE I proceed further to consider as to whether the grounds alleged by the wife for the dissolution of the marriage have been proved and the decree for dissolution passed by the trial court should be confirmed, I would l

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