A Pune Family Court granted divorce by mutual consent to an engineer couple fourteen days after they jointly presented a petition and obtained a waiver of the mandatory 6-month cooling-off period.
The husband, who is from the Karnataka district of Uttar Kannada, works as a project manager for a company in Dubai, while the wife, a software engineer, lives in Talegaon Dabhade.
Their marriage was legally consummated on December 12, 2017, under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
However, the couple began living apart on April 26, 2019, due to disagreements and incompatibility.
After all attempts at reconciliation failed, the couple filed a joint and voluntary petition for divorce by mutual consent fourteen days ago through their lawyers, Mayur Salunke and Ajinkya Salunke.
In her ruling on September 29,2021, Judge M R Kale noted that both parties had been separated for more than 18 months. As a result, the Judge felt there was no need to make them wait another 6 months for the cooling-off period stipulated in Section 28 of the Marriage Act.
The Judge also stated that the wife had waived her right to maintenance and that neither husband nor wife will have any claim on the other's property, both movable and immovable.
The Judge also stated that there was no dispute regarding stridhan and other articles, and that no claims were pending against each other.
The judge stated that the marriage counsellor had also filed a report stating that the couple could not be reconciled. As such, the Judge ruled that this was a suitable case for granting a decree of divorce by mutual consent.
The Supreme Court previously ruled that the 6-month cooling-off period can be waived if there is no chance of reconciliation between an estranged couple.
The marriage can be legally terminated in just a week, especially if the couple has been living apart for more than a year, according to the Supreme Court's order.
According to the Supreme Court order, "The amendment was inspired by the thought that forcible perpetuation of matrimonial status between unwilling partners served no purpose."
"The object of the cooling off period was to safeguard against a hurried decision if there was otherwise the possibility of differences being reconciled," the Supreme Court order further stated.
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