5/1/2016

CanHindusappealdivorcein30or90daysofdecree?HCtodecideTimesofIndia

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Can Hindus appeal divorce in 30 or 90 days of

decree? HC to decide
TNN | Apr 30, 2016, 11.19 PM IST

umbai: Is remarriage by a Hindu between 30 and 90 days of

a divorce verdict a legal marriage? This is a perplexing
question which a 39-year-old Hindu woman, now in an
advanced stage of pregnancy in her second marriage, faces.
The case is nally likely to be decided by a full bench of the Bombay high
court. In September 2014, the high court had granted a status quo in the
case, two months after she had remarried following her divorce granted
by a family court that April.
Last week, the HC set up a full bench to decide a legal conflict on the
appeal period for Hindu couples. The three-judge bench will decide
whether the Family Courts Act, which provides for a 30-day deadline, or
the Hindu Marriage Act, which provides for a 90-day deadline, is applicable to divorcing Hindu couples.
The signicance of the limitation provided by law is that once the appeal deadline ends, the divorced couple is free to remarry
without the fear of challenge to the family court decree.
The full bench was nally set up 14 months after a division bench referred the controversy to a larger bench, in a similar
dichotomy that arose in an appeal. The reason was that nine years ago, in April 2007, a bench of Justices J N Patel and Amjad
Sayed had held that the Hindu Marriage Act, being a special law, would override the provisions of the Family Courts Act, and
aggrieved husbands or wives could le appeals against a family court judgement within three months, not 30 days. The bench
said the relaxation would apply only to Hindu marriages.
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5/1/2016

CanHindusappealdivorcein30or90daysofdecree?HCtodecideTimesofIndia

In December 2014, a ruling by another bench divorced itself from the earlier 2007 decision. In an appeal led in 2013, a Hindu
man relied on the 90-day period of limitation made available with the 2007 judgment, to argue that his challenge to a divorce
decree, led more than 30 days later, was valid. A bench of Justices Abhay Oka and A S Gadkari held that only the Family
Courts Acta consolidated law that governs divorce proceedings, including appealswould have precedence, and appeals can
be led only within 30 days, not 90.
Since the issue is "very signicant" as the appeal deadline could make or break the legality of a marriage even before the couple
goes to war in a court, in 2014 the bench held that a larger bench must decide the law point.

Come April 2016, though, a Nashik woman found that her divorce order of April 2014 challenged by her former husband, had
thrown into jeopardy the existence of her second marriage.
She had remarried 69 days after her divorce, which she had sought and got on grounds of cruelty and abuse. Her spouse,
though, appealed in the high court after she remarried and said he was a good husband who does not want out.

Two weeks ago, the woman's counsel, Rui Rodrigues, told the high court that the appeal hearing must be stayed since a threejudge bench was yet to be appointed to give the nal verdict on the legal conflict over the correct deadline. The woman had
led for divorce in 2011 after around three years of a "traumatic" marriage. Besides, the high court had granted a status quo on
her second marriage after 144 days or almost ve months of the divorce. Last Wednesday, when the matter came up again for
hearing before a bench headed by Justice Oka, the bench deferred the hearing to June 30 and said that a full bench headed by
Justice Naresh Patil has now been constituted.

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