Last Updated:
The court held that courts should not compel spouses to sit through the statutory waiting period where the parties themselves have made clear their decision to part ways.
The court set aside the Family Court’s docket order of July 10, 2025, and directed it to number the mutual consent divorce petition without insisting on completion of the one-year separation period.
The Madras High Court recently set aside a Family Court docket order and directed the Coimbatore Family Court to number a mutual consent divorce petition, holding that courts should not compel spouses to sit through the statutory waiting period where the parties themselves have made clear their decision to part ways.
“In such circumstances, compelling the petitioners to wait for the mandatory period to expire would only further increase their agony,” the court observed.
Recommended Stories
The divorce petition was filed on April 16, 2025, under Section 10A of the Indian Divorce Act; the petitioners stated the date of separation as January 1, 2025. The Family Court initially returned the petition on April 21, 2025, treating it as not maintainable because the statutory period had not elapsed.
After an earlier direction from the High Court to re-present the papers, the Family Court, by a docket order dated July 10, 2025, again held that the mandatory one-year separation period under Section 10A(1) could not be dispensed with. Aggrieved, the couple filed the present civil revision petition.
Counsel for the petitioners told the court the parties had agreed to present the mutual consent petition “on account of irreconcilable differences and misunderstandings and also in view of the marriage having been irretrievably broken down”.
Considering the matter, the bench of Justice P.B. Balaji took a different view from the Family Court.
The judge noted that both spouses had filed separate affidavits, clearly affirming that their decision to separate was voluntary, free of coercion or collusion, and based on irreconcilable differences.
Importantly, there were no children born of the marriage, removing concerns about custody or welfare. In such a situation, the court reasoned, there was no point in mechanically enforcing the one-year waiting period.
The High Court also took into account precedents from other courts. The petitioners had relied on a 2022 judgment of the Kerala High Court in Anup Disalva v. Union of India, where a division bench struck down the two-year separation requirement under Section 10A as arbitrary and unconstitutional, reading it down to one year in line with the Special Marriage Act, Hindu Marriage Act, and Parsi Marriage Act. The Kerala court had also emphasised that when both spouses mutually seek divorce, insisting on a mandatory waiting time was oppressive.
Justice Balaji noted that while the Kerala High Court’s ruling was not binding on courts in Tamil Nadu, it carried persuasive value. Further, the Supreme Court had, in Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur (2017) and Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), recognised the discretion of courts to waive the six-month cooling-off period under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act where circumstances justified early dissolution. On the same reasoning, the High Court held that family courts cannot mechanically apply the waiting period requirement when parties have conclusively resolved to separate.
Accordingly, the court set aside the Family Court’s docket order of July 10, 2025, and directed it to number the mutual consent divorce petition without insisting on completion of the one-year separation period. Court further ordered that the petition not be returned or rejected on this ground in future.
About the Author
Salil Tiwari, Senior Special Correspondent at Lawbeat, reports on the Allahabad High Court and courts in Uttar Pradesh, however, she also writes on important cases of national importance and public interests fr…Read More
Salil Tiwari, Senior Special Correspondent at Lawbeat, reports on the Allahabad High Court and courts in Uttar Pradesh, however, she also writes on important cases of national importance and public interests fr… Read More
September 24, 2025, 23:11 IST
Loading comments…
Read More
