The country’s highest court has sent a pointed reminder to judges across the system: two people living apart does not automatically mean their marriage has collapsed beyond repair. Before declaring a relationship dead on arrival, courts must peel back the layers and identify who – if anyone – actually severed the marital bond.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi drove this home while undoing an order of the Uttarakhand High Court, which had granted a divorce simply because the spouses were living separately. The trial court had earlier refused the husband’s plea for divorce, noting allegations that he had forced his wife out of the matrimonial home. The High Court brushed past that claim; the Supreme Court did not.
The bench observed that a growing pattern has begun to seep into family litigation: judges seeing physical separation and immediately stamping the marriage as “irretrievably broken”. The Court called this approach dangerously simplistic.
According to the bench, before a marriage is declared beyond salvage, courts must answer hard questions:
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Was one spouse pushed out, or did they leave by choice?
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If an earlier divorce petition was withdrawn, does it cast a shadow on a fresh one based on similar accusations?
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Did the conduct of either spouse—denial of support, refusal to cohabit, or neglect of a child—amount to cruelty?
Without clear evidence of intentional abandonment or refusal to maintain the relationship, the Court warned, assuming “irretrievable breakdown” can have severe consequences, particularly for children who may be caught in the fallout.
Finding that the High Court had sidestepped the core allegations and failed to examine the roots of the separation, the Supreme Court set aside its order. The case now returns to the High Court, this time for a thorough, ground-up reconsideration.
