"Make prenuptial agreements mandatory": Delhi court while granting no-fault divorce to couple

A Delhi court recently said that prenuptial agreements should be made mandatory before entering into marriage so that parties to the marriage need not face law induced mental cruelty. .Family Court judge Harish Kumar of the Patiala House Courts made the observation while granting divorce on no-fault basis to a couple who had been involved in legal battles for the last seven years.“Time has come to make compulsory prenuptial agreement to be executed before appointed authority after counseling of the parties about the possible risk of marriage going haywire for variety of reasons and making it mandatory to report breach every time breach occurs under intimation to the party allegedly at fault, making it further clear that if breach not reported he/she would not be heard later on that he/she did not report thinking that she/he would improve," the Court said.Notably, the Court passed the order granting divorce without going into which party was at fault for the breakdown of marital relations. Instead, the Court inferred that both spouses wanted the divorce since they had both levelled allegations against the other while pressing for a divorce. .“This Court, therefore, in the present case in the facts and circumstances as noted above, without going into question as who is at fault so as to allow husband's or wife's prayer for dissolution of their marriage on fault theory, hereby dissolve their marriage under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 taking their respective prayer to dissolve their marriage (based on the faults of other) as their respective consent to dissolve their marriage, from the date of decree to be drawn up following this judgement,” the Court said..The Court noted that in recent times, matrimonial cases have seen a phenomenal increase and most of them do not involve real cruelty. All the same, if one of the parties decides to walk out of marriage for any reason, he or she would have no option but to approach the Court and make allegations against the other, the judge added. “[These allegations] snowball into counter allegation and Court of law is pressed into service to find out something which never existed because difference of opinion and disagreements are also reported as an act of cruelty. Till such time real effort is made by the society as whole and the legislature in particular, temple of justice will keep on devising way to respond to the grave situation," the Court added. .The couple before the Court had got married in 2011 and had a daughter. Though both parties wanted a divorce, they could not agree to a divorce with mutual consent because they could not agree on various issues between them..Judge Kumar considered the case and held that if there is acrimonious matrimonial discord where the spouses have leveled grave allegations and there is no hope of them living together, it would be cruel not to dissolve the marriage. The Court said that refusing to dissolve such a marriage just because one party has not been able to prove the fault of the other, would amount to forcing parties to suffer further regardless of who is at fault.Refusal to grant divorce in such a case would amount to the parties facing law-induced mental cruelty, the Court stressed..The Court added that people may see this decision as an attempt to shirk its responsibility to adjudicate after analysing or sifting through evidence.However, the interest of the State and of the society lies in giving quietus to conflicting claims particularly within a family, the judge said.“Spirit of the Family Court Act is also to bring out settlement between the parties, which means putting quietus to their dispute. In the present case if prayer of husband or wife is accepted holding the other spouse guilty of matrimonial offense, the person against whom findings would go will take the matter to higher forum thus drag the other into rigmarole of further round of litigation with added agony and harassment. Similarly, refusal of their respective prayer, if they failed to prove their allegation, would also lead to law induced mental cruelty as discussed above," the Court explained further. .On the issue of custody of the child, the Court kept both the parents as legal guardians for school, academic and extracurricular purposes and directed the mother to get the name of the father added in the daughter's school records.Noting that both parents live in the same society in Gurugram, the Court also granted the father daily regular access and weekend overnight access to the couple's daughter.On maintenance, the Court directed both parents to bear 50% of the daughter’s reasonable expenses..Advocate Varun Sharma appeared for the petitioner (husband). The wife was represented through advocates Prashant Mendiratta and Aditi Chaudhary.