Family Courts Can’t Compel Parties To Take Divorce If Not Mutually Acceptable: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has said that family courts cannot compel the parties to take divorce if not mutually acceptable and that their approach must be reconciliatory.

A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna made the observation while dismissing a husband’s appeal against a family court order rejecting his contempt petition against the wife for not having abided by the MoU whereby they had agreed to take divorce by mutual consent.

The parties, who got married in 2017, preferred a divorce petition after the MoU. The petition for first motion was allowed in December 2020. However, the wife did not come forth to file the petition for second motion of divorce and thus, the husband preferred the contempt petition against her.

Vide the impugned order, the Family Court concluded that there was no wilful breach of any undertaking given to the court and no contempt was made out against the wife.

Dismissing the appeal, the bench said that the wife cannot be compelled to give her consent for second motion which was the husband’s only prayer.

“So being the case, we find that the learned Judge, Family Courts has rightly observed that there was no Civil Contempt of Court committed by the respondent,” the court said.

Observing that primary objective of the matrimonial laws is to make sincere endeavour for reconciliation between the parties, the court said that both the husband and wife in the case mutually entered into a settlement without initiating any divorce proceedings in the Court.

“The MoU was submitted by the parties at the time of First Motion. The respondent in her cooling off period after First Motion, has had second thoughts and decided against taking divorce,” the court noted.

It said: “Pertinently, the respondent has no inclination to grant divorce since she has already filed a petition under Section 9 of the Act, 1955 for Restitution of Conjugal Rights and has also filed a Guardianship Petition for seeking permanent custody of the minor daughter. In view of the above, we do not find that the respondent has committed any contempt under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. There is no merit in the present Appeal which is hereby dismissed.”

Advocates Amarjeet Singh Sahni and Shreya Gupta appeared for the appellant.

Advocates Vinay Chaddha Shisba Chawla appeared for the respondent.

Title: ABC v. XYZ

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 877

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