India’s top court has allowed a couple to go their separate ways without waiting for the mandatory “cooling-off” period of six months on learning that they have decided to part as friends, a media report said.
A Supreme Court Bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and S.K. Kaul said the court found the husband and wife both “well-educated”.
The judges had a long interaction with the couple and was “convinced that they have taken a conscious decision to part as friends” after entering into an amicable settlement. In terms of the settlement, the husband has paid the woman INR 12.5 lakh.
The apex court dissolved the marriage by a decree of divorce by mutual consent. It also quashed criminal proceedings before a Gujarat court, The Hindu reported.
Though the couple had come to the Supreme Court on a transfer of their legal dispute from a family court in Delhi to that in Gujarat, the apex court intervened to end the acrimony itself and smoothened the way for the couple to gain their divorce without bitterness.
“Having regard to the background of the litigations between the parties, we are convinced that there is no point in requiring the parties to wait for another six months. Accordingly, the period between first motion and the second motion is waived,” the Bench recorded in a September 25 order.
This is one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court has followed its own ruling in September 2017 that Hindu couples who have mutually agreed to separate need not wait anymore for the mandatory “cooling-off ” period of six months before divorce.