Verbal divorce has no legality

KARACHI: Justice Sajjad Ali Shah of the Supreme Court has observed that a “verbal divorce” has no legal value and it only gets formalised after meeting the legal prerequisities. The Supreme Court bench made the observation during a case pertaining to monthly payment of alimony by husband to wife in the Supreme Court, Karachi Registry on Tuesday.

Justice Sajjad Ali Shah passed the observation when he found that the man had divorced his wife and he has no documentation to prove the dissolution of marriage. The court ordered the husband to pay alimony to his wife. The counsel for petitioner Rashid Ahmad Qureshi (husband) took the plea that his client had divorced his wife Safia Rashid and therefore it is not binding on him to pay the alimony. The counsel said his client had divorced his wife verbally and a subordinate court ordered his client to pay Rs 5,000 per month as alimony to his former wife. We have filed petition against it, he said.

Rejecting the husband’s plea against the subordinate court decision, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah said the court can fix an amount of Rs 25,000 instead of Rs 5,000 as alimony has to be paid every month. The monthly expenses are the right of the wife which will have to be paid by your client, he ordered.