5 August, Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has emphasized that couple alone are not the only ones who have a duty to preserve marriages. The courts are also charged with doing all within their power to keep marriages intact “as far as possible.” At the same time, the Bench decided that if a couple’s relationship was irreparably damaged, the courts could not force them to live together.
The Hindu Marriage Act’s Section 23(2) came into force, according to the Bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Sudeepti Sharma, with the intention of ensuring that courts make an effort to resolve disputes between couple that occasionally result from minor incidents that could be handled by the courts.
“There is no doubt that the court and the parties concerned have an obligation to do all within their power to preserve the marriage. However, the Bench argued that it is best for both parties involved as well as the kids, for them to break up when there is no scope, and it doesn’t seem like there would be any advantage to trying to keep the parties together permanently.
The judges also said unequivocally that husbands and wives are not merely “properties” that the courts “may order to coexist.” The claim was made while the Bench considered an ongoing divorce case involving two people who had been living apart for almost 19 years.
The respondent wife’s decision to file a FIR against her husband, which resulted in his conviction, was a crucial turning point in the case. The Bench noted that it was nearly hard for a couple to live together when one had been the target of criminal charges by the other.
The judges also criticized the lower court for not realizing that the marriage had irreversibly broken down and for not taking the couples’ prolonged separation and lack of attempts at rehabilitation into account.