“Marriage between two Hindus is sacrosanct and its dissolution would be permissible only for the reasons permissible in law. On routine grounds of mutual incompatibility between the parties, it would not be open for the parties to seek exemption from one year limitation in filing such petition.”

Dismissing an appeal on grounds of poor merit the bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Donadi Ramesh of Allahabad High Court upheld an order passed by a Principal Judge, Family Court, Saharanpur and took a firm stance on parties seeking divorce on flimsy grounds of “incompatibility between the parties.”

Briefly stating the facts, a petition was filed by parties for mutual dissolution of their marriage under section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 Act.(Act). On 09.10.2024, by way of an order the Principal Judge, Family Court rejected the petition on grounds that the “minimum period for moving such application, as is provided under Section 14 of the Act, has not yet expired”.

The bench highlighted that “under Section 14 of the Act no petition for divorce is to be presented within one year of marriage”. However, the proviso empowers the Court to allow a petition even before the expiry of one year, since the date of marriage, on the ground that the case is of exceptional hardship to the petitioner or of exceptional depravity on the part of the respondent”.

In the instant case, the bench observed that apart from routine grounds of incompatibility between the parties no exceptional hardships or exceptional depravity was seen to have existed to invoke jurisdiction under the proviso to Section 14 of the Act.

“We therefore do not find any illegality or perversity in the view taken by the learned Court in refusing to grant permission to the parties to file a petition for divorce even before expiry of one year of marriage.”

Consequently, the court dismissed the appeal due to lack of merit allowing the parties to submit a new application after the one-year period of marriage has ended.

Case Title:Sri Nishant Bhardwaj v. Smt. Rishika Gautam 2025:AHC:6274-DB

Advocate for Petitioners: Adv.Praveen Kumar

Advocate for Respondents: Adv.Sunil Kumar Mishra