The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 and the recommendations of The Law Commission

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 was an effort in the direction of changing the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954, to provide therein unrecoverable break down of marriage as a ground of separation. The Bill would provide safeguards to parties to marriage who file petition for grant of divorce by consent from the harassment in court if any of the party does not come to the court or wilfully avoids the court to keep the divorce proceedings inconclusive.

At present, different reasons for disintegration of marriage by a declaration of separation are set down in Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The grounds entomb alia incorporate infidelity, savagery, abandonment, transformation to an alternate religion, unsoundness of brain, destructive and hopeless type of infection, venereal ailment in a transmittable structure, revocation of the world and not heard as being alive for a time of seven years or more.

Segment 27 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 likewise sets down comparable grounds. However, segment 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act and Section 28 of the Special Marriage Act accommodates separation by mutual assent as a ground for filing an appeal for disintegration 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 law amendment bill was prepared on the suggestions of the Law Commission and the Supreme Court that “lost breakdown of marriage” ought to be fused as an alternate ground for stipend of separation. The new provisions will be notwithstanding the existing justification for separation incorporate infidelity, cold-bloodedness, abandonment, change to an alternate religion, unsoundness of psyche, destructive and hopeless type of sickness, venereal illness in a transferrable structure, repudiation of the world and not heard as being alive for a time of seven years and its procurements are not against the standards set down in the Constitution of India.

REF. mightylaws.in

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