Now, Christian spouses in Karnataka need to live
separately only for a year, instead of the existing two-year period, for
seeking dissolution of marriage by mutual consent.
The
Karnataka High Court on Monday declared that a judgment of the Kerala
High Court — which in 2010 declared as unconstitutional the imposition
of two-year separation period for divorce by mutual consent under
Divorce Act, 1869 — is applicable to Karnataka also.
A
Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice D.H. Waghela and Justice B.V.
Nagarathna, said the verdict of the Kerala High Court had become the law
for the entire country, as the judgment was not challenged in the
Supreme Court by the Union government, which was a respondent before
Kerala High Court.
PIL
The
Bench passed the order while disposing of a public interest litigation
(PIL) petition, filed by Shiv Kumar, an advocate and master trainer at
the Bangalore Mediation Centre, which had challenged the validity of
Section 10A of the Act that prescribes two-year period prior to filling
of petition for divorce by Christians.
Other divorce laws
The
petitioner pointed out that spouses should have lived separately only
for a year if they had to file a petition for divorce by mutual consent
under Section 28 of the Special Marriages Act, 1954, Section 13 of the
Hindu Marriage Act 1955, and Section 32B of the Parsi Marriage and
Divorce Act, 1936.
The petitioner, citing Kerala High
Court’s verdict, had contended that Section 10A was discriminatory as
it imposed two-year separation period unlike other religions.
The
Roman Catholic Church (RCC) had stated that as marriage was not
considered in the same light by different communities in India and the
“RCC’s firm conviction is that marriage is a ‘Sacrament,’ it would stand
to reason that given sufficiently long time, the [Christian] spouses
stand better chance of sorting out their differences and bring about
settlement…”
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