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.