The Supreme Court issued guidelines giving its verdict on divorce by mutual consent. The court said that if it is not possible to establish a relationship, then the court can intervene through the rights given under Article 142 for complete justice. Not only this, the court said that there is no legal compulsion to wait for 6 months for divorce by mutual consent. Other provisions including maintenance allowance have also been mentioned in the guidelines issued by the court. This decision has been given by a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court.
Section 142 for annulment of broken marriage
For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has exercised extraordinarily broad powers under Article 142 to annul broken marriages. However, in September 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether marriages between couples living separately can be annulled without the consent of both the partners.
What is Article 142?
Article 142 of the Constitution confers on the Supreme Court wide powers, whereby it can pronounce judgments to do “complete justice” in any matter pending before it. Two questions were sent to the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court regarding this. Whether such jurisdiction under Article 142 should not be exercised by the Supreme Court at all or such exercise should be left to be decided in the facts of each case.