Bombay High Court accepted the request made by a Mumbai-based woman seeking dissolution of her troubled marriage on an urgent basis. The appellant approached the High Court to waive cooling off period, citing the grounds that she is pregnant with the person whom she wanted to marry soon.
The court accorded her the waiver of the compulsory six-month cooling-off period before the customary grant of a divorce decree with mutual consent.
They got married on August 15, 2014. Following a marital discord, the two had started living separately from 2018.
On August 4, she filed a joint petition under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, in a family court in Bandra. The two had also sought a waiver of the mandatory six-month cooling-off period under Section 13B (2) of the Act.
According to Section 13B (2) of the Act, a court grants a divorce decree only after six months and before 18 months of representation by a joint petition.
Bandra court rejected her appeal on September 9. Therefore, she approached the Bombay High Court.
Taking note of the Supreme Court 2017 judgment in the Supreme Court (SC) in Amardeep Singh’s case, Justice Nitin Sambre accepted the request. The apex court in 2017 judgment had observed, “a court is empowered to use its discretionary powers to waive the cooling-off period on a case-by-case basis, especially where there is no possibility of a man and a wife to reunite and there are chances of their alternative rehabilitation.”
“In this backdrop, it will be appropriate, particularly having regard to the health condition of the petitioner, to allow the joint application moved for waiving the period as specified under section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955,” stated Justice Nitin Sambre.
