The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 Explained

Current status (2026): The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 sought to amend the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954, to add irretrievable breakdown of marriage as a ground for divorce. Although it was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2013, the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha and never became law. As a result, irretrievable breakdown of marriage is still not a statutory ground for divorce in India. Only the Supreme Court can dissolve a marriage on that basis, in exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, as confirmed in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023). The discussion below is therefore of historical and academic interest, explaining what the Bill proposed and why it was introduced.

At present, the grounds for dissolution of marriage by a decree of divorce are set out in Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. These grounds include, among others, adultery, cruelty, desertion, conversion to another religion, unsoundness of mind, renunciation of the world, and the spouse not having been heard of as being alive for a period of seven years or more. (Note: the grounds of “incurable leprosy” and venereal disease were removed by the Personal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019.)

Section 27 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 likewise sets down comparable grounds. In addition, Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act and Section 28 of the Special Marriage Act provide for divorce by mutual consent as a ground for filing a petition for dissolution of marriage.

In the case of Chandralekha Trivedi v. S.P. Trivedi [(1993) 4 SCC 232], the Supreme Court has not used the term irretrievable breakdown of marriage but has defined that the marriage is ‘dead’. Husband initiated a divorce proceeding on the ground of cruelty and also wife’s intimacy with young boys, after the nine years of marriage. Wife also made similar allegations against the husband. Their only daughter was already married when High Court granted a divorce decree. On appeal, Supreme Court felt that it would be futile to decide the allegations and counter-allegations as the marriage became dead.

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill was prepared on the suggestions of the Law Commission and the Supreme Court that “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” ought to be added as an additional ground for the grant of divorce. The proposed provision would have operated alongside the existing grounds for divorce, such as adultery, cruelty, desertion, conversion to another religion, unsoundness of mind, renunciation of the world and the spouse not having been heard of as being alive for a period of seven years. Because the Bill lapsed and was never enacted, however, irretrievable breakdown of marriage was never introduced as a statutory ground, and it remains available only through the Supreme Court’s powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.

REF. mightylaws.in

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