8/27/2010
27.08.2010 (UNI) The Supreme Court has ruled that a divorce granted by a village panchayat is not legal and marriage can be anulled only by a competent court.
A bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan upheld the judgement of Allahabad High Court holding, ‘the High Court has rightly held that dissolution of marriage through panchayat as per custom prevailing in that area and in that community permitted cannot be a ground for granting divorce under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act,1955.’
‘We fully agree with the said decision for the reason that in case the appellant wanted a decree on the basis of customary dissolution of marriage through panchayat held on June 7,1997, he would not have filed a petition under section 13 of the Act.
‘Filing this petition itself means that none of the parties was of the view that divorce granted by the panchayat was legal.’ The apex court dismissed the appeal filed by the husband Mahendra Nath Yadav against the High Court judgement of October 8, 2004.
Yadav and Sheela Devi had got married on May 3, 1990. The appellant is in army and the wife is a teacher.
The wife filed the petition for maintenance under section 125 CrPC in the court of judicial magistrate, Varanasi, who directed Mr Yadav to pay Rs 400 a month as maintenance.
The husband challenged the order of maintenance contending that he has already been granted divorce by panchayat and has paid Rs 30,000 to the family of his wife and after the divorce they were no longer husband and wife and, therefore she was not entitled to get maintenance. UNI
pls give some more examples and cases like that
I need some more examples where SC has given judgements that a Panchayat given divorce is not valid.
Seriously… that was quite in depth, cheers.