Supreme Court slams couple for seeking quick-fix divorce

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has castigated a chartered accountant-doctor couple for seeking to abuse the judicial process to obtain a quick divorce without waiting for the mandatory sixmonth cooling period.


“This case reveals a very sorry state of affairs that the parties being highly qualified have claimed to be higher and above the law and have a vested right to use, misuse and abuse the process of the court,” a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and B S Chauhan said in an order.

The apex court passed the order while dismissing the appeal of

Manish Goel, a chartered accountant, who sought divorce from his estranged doctor wife Rohini Goel (MD, radio diagnosis) even though the matrimonial court had granted the couple six months time for reconcillation.

The bench said it was not inclined to exercise its extraordinary powers to waive the statutory six month period provided under the Hindu Marriages Act Section 13-B(1) and asked the couple to wait till the end of the cooling period provided under the law for reconciliation.

Goel filed a divorce suit in a Gurgaon court in 2008 against his wife who, in turn, filed a complaint of harassment and domestic violence against him and his family members.

The couple, however, arrived at a compromise and thereafter, filed another suit for divorce under “mutual consent” (Section 13-B(1) before a court in Delhi on November 13, 2009.

The couple then filed an application to waive the statutory six months period provided under Section 13-B(1), which was rejected by the matrimonial court which held such waiver can be provided only by the apex court. PTI