SUITABILITY OF ‘IRRETRIEVABLE BREAKDOWN OF MARRIAGE’ THEORY IN CURRENT SCENARIO (By-Shivanshu Kunwar Srivastava)

When two persons are tied not by love but merely by a legal bond and they can't live together in peace, it's unfair to keep them chained by a marital tie. In such a condition it is best to liberate them from the ties of a dysfunctional marriage so that they may proceed to live the remaining years of their life in peace and on their own terms. It is reasonable to assume that the marital bond joining them has completely broken down when the parties have been living separately for a sufficiently long period of time and one of them has filed a divorce petition in the court. The court should first make efforts to reunite the parties and save the marriage; but, if it is not possible then the decree for divorce should be granted.
The grant of a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage would be particularly beneficial in those cases where the marital relationship has completely broken down with no trace of any emotional attachment or any intent to reconcile, but one of the parties to the marriage is not willing to give consent for divorce with the sole intention to frustrate the other party’s right for relief from a dysfunctional marriage. Thus, where a party intentionally withholds his or her consent for a divorce by mutual consent under Section 13-B, and none of the grounds of fault as enumerated under Section 13 virtually exists, this theory would prove a boon for such stressed persons.