In a sharp and unusually candid rebuke, the Delhi High Court has pressed the reset button on a divorce case after discovering that the family court judge had leaned on laws that simply do not exist. The result: the divorce decree was scrapped, and the judge was instructed to return to the training bench before handling any more matrimonial disputes.
The trouble began at Patiala House, where the family court dissolved a marriage without recording a shred of oral evidence—while citing provisions that belonged to a different statute altogether. Even more startling: a reference to a mythical “Section 28A” of the Special Marriage Act (SMA), a provision that no Parliament has ever written.
The High Court, noticing a pattern in the judge’s handling of similar cases, announced that enough was enough.
The Bench made it clear that judicial shortcuts and statutory improvisation cannot be excused by overflowing dockets. “Caseload pressure is not a passport to rewrite the law,” the Court cautioned, underscoring that statutes aren’t rubber bands to be stretched at will.
The backstory involves a marriage that unraveled into a maze of cross-litigation across states, eventually landing before the Supreme Court, which shipped the matter to Delhi for unified adjudication. But once the case reached the local family court, the petitioner’s right to present evidence was shut down prematurely. No testimony from either side was taken. Instead, the court granted a divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act while citing provisions from the SMA—an entirely separate legal terrain.
This was not, the High Court observed, a one-off episode. The judge had, in previous matters, dissolved marriages without adhering to statutory commands. The situation had become troubling enough for the High Court to step in firmly.
The Bench also took exception to comments by the family court judge describing Hindu marriages as “holy unions,” implying that marriages under the Special Marriage Act lacked similar sanctity. The High Court swiftly dismissed that notion, reminding that the SMA was designed as a neutral, secular code with the same dignity and legal force as any personal-law marriage.
Though courts are generally advised to avoid personal criticism of judicial officers, the High Court said the circumstances here demanded a clear and unflinching response. The conduct, it held, risked eroding trust in the justice system.
The divorce decree has now been wiped clean. A fresh trial will unfold before the Principal Judge at Patiala House, with both sides given a full opportunity to present oral and documentary evidence—this time under the proper law, and without any imaginary sections sneaking in.
In parallel, the Delhi Judicial Academy has been tasked with giving the concerned judge a comprehensive refresher in matrimonial law before he returns to that domain.
