Irretrievable Breakdown and Constitutional Finality: Supreme Court Grants Divorce Under Article 142

(Article 142 Divorce | Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage | Multiple Matrimonial Litigations | Perjury Proceedings | Supreme Court 2026 | Transfer Petition Criminal | Shilpa Sailesh Applied)

- By Atul Singh, Advocate

A marriage that lasted barely sixty-five days travelled through various courts for more than a decade. That is the factual canvas of a marital discord that came before the Hon’ble Supreme Court recently in Neha Lal v. Abhishek Kumar.

The parties got married in January 2012 and separated after a mere 65 days. They never resumed cohabitation. With the passage of time, the marriage became deadwood. What survived was not a relationship, not companionship, but a web of protracted litigation in the form of civil proceedings, criminal complaints, maintenance claims, domestic violence cases, transfer petitions, perjury applications and much more. The dispute gradually transformed into full-scale matrimonial litigation, consuming judicial time across forums.

When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the issue was no longer whether the marriage was workable. The answer was a clear NO. Even though the proceedings arose out of a Transfer Petition filed by the wife, during the course of the hearing, the real question that emerged was whether the law would insist on preserving a legal bond that had long ceased to exist in substance. The Court invoked Article 142 of the Constitution and dissolved the marriage on the ground of “irretrievable breakdown of marriage”. This, even though, is not one of the statutory grounds under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 or other personal laws governing divorce. It was an application of the constitutional position settled in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan, where it was authoritatively held that the Supreme Court may, in appropriate cases, dissolve a marriage to do complete justice under Article 142 of the Constitution of India.

The facts of the case left little room for hesitation. More than ten years of separation. A marriage that lasted two months. No child from the wedlock. Failed attempts at mediation. Dozens of proceedings are pending in different courts. So much so that even the parties’ own disclosures about pending cases required verification from High Court registries. The level and spread of matrimonial litigation itself showed that the relationship had irretrievably broken down. The judgment highlighted that courts cannot be treated as battlefields by warring spouses. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated scenario. Marital discords frequently spiral into multiple cross-complaints, counter-cases, and procedural/technical objections or skirmishes which consume disproportionate judicial time. Each case, whether it is maintenance under BNSS or proceedings under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, perjury or FIRs alleging cruelty, etc., serves a legitimate legal purpose. But when these legal remedies are deployed as instruments of escalation rather than resolution, the justice system becomes an arena of attrition and a battlefield of spouses blinded by ego and strategy rather than seeking closure. Such intervention by the Supreme Court, especially in the exercise of its extraordinary powers under Article 142, comes as a necessary corrective. It prevents endless matrimonial litigation from outliving the relationship itself. It also recognises that prolonged adversarial proceedings expose both spouses to financial burden, emotional trauma and institutional fatigue, often without any meaningful resolution.

At the same time, Article 142 cannot be misunderstood as a shortcut to divorce. It is a constitutional safety valve. It is exercised sparingly, where the Court is satisfied that the marriage is beyond salvage and continuation would serve no purpose except prolonging hostility. The power is extraordinary, but its exercise is principled.

In dissolving the marriage in Neha Lal's Judgment, the Supreme Court did not create a new doctrine of divorce. It recognised a lived reality. A marriage that survives only in pleadings is not a marriage in substance. Law cannot manufacture emotional partnership. It can, however, prevent a dead relationship from occupying judicial space indefinitely.

The judgment ultimately stands for something larger than divorce law. It stands for finality in matrimonial disputes. It stands for the proposition that the justice system cannot be allowed to host endless personal warfare under the guise of matrimonial adjudication. And it stands for a constitutional principle: when statutory law is insufficient to end injustice, the Constitution must intervene. Sometimes, doing complete justice means acknowledging that what is broken cannot be repaired, and ensuring that litigation does not outlive the marriage itself.

Also read: https://www.fromthedeskofasm.com/post/divorce-by-mutual-consent-vs-contested-divorce-india

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