Prenuptial Agreements should be made mandatory before Marriage in India: Delhi Court

A Delhi court while hearing a divorce case recently observed that prenuptial agreements should be made mandatory before marriage so that no one needs to face law-induced mental cruelty.

Family court judge Harish Kumar from the Patiala House Courts, while granting divorce on a no-fault basis to a couple who had been involved in legal battles for over seven years, observed, "The time has come to make compulsory a prenuptial agreement to be executed before the appointed authority after counselling of parties about the possible risk of marriage going haywire for a variety of reasons..."

The couple, who got married in 2011 and had a daughter out of the wedlock, refused to get divorce with mutual consent accusing each other of committing atrocities.

'Spirit of Family Court Act is to bring out settlement'

The judge said that people may see the court's decision as an attempt to shirk its responsibility to adjudicate after analysing or sifting through evidence. But it said the interest of the state and of society lies in giving quietus to conflicting claims particularly within a family.

"Spirit of the Family Court Act is also to bring out settlement between the parties, which means putting quietus to their dispute. In the present case, if (the) prayer of the husband or wife is accepted holding the other spouse guilty of matrimonial offence, the person against whom findings would go will take the matter to higher forum, thus dragging the other into rigmarole of further round of litigation with added agony and harassment. Similarly, refusal of their respective prayer, if they failed to prove their allegation, would also lead to law-induced mental cruelty...," the court said.

The court, inferring that both spouses wanted the divorce since they had both levelled allegations against each other while pressing for a divorce, decided to grant divorce without going into which party was at fault.

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