Now Reading: SC says foreign divorce on irretrievable breakdown invalid in India
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SC says foreign divorce on irretrievable breakdown invalid in India
The Story in Brief
The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 3 November ruled that a foreign divorce decree granted on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not enforceable in India. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar refused to quash a bigamy case against a UK-based doctor who remarried after obtaining a divorce from the Cambridge County Court in 2014.
The court held that the foreign decree violated Section 13 of the CPC because irretrievable breakdown is not a statutory ground under the Hindu Marriage Act. It rejected the argument that British citizenship or the location of the second marriage outside India shielded the husband from Section 494 IPC. The bench quashed proceedings against the man's parents and second wife, finding no overt act attributable to them. The husband's criminal trial will proceed.
Indian Opinion Analysis
All six sources report the same Supreme Court ruling with near-identical facts, each attributing the bench's reasoning to the judgment text itself rather than adding editorial framing. Deccan Herald quotes the court on delay being a continuing offence, a detail absent from the shorter accounts. Times Now and Rediff lead with the bench's rejection of the forum non conveniens argument. The uniform coverage means the story's legal significance, that foreign decrees on non-recognised grounds cannot defeat Section 494 IPC, stands alone without competing narratives. The case returns to the trial court.
Coverage: 5 sources, 5 neutral
Sources (5): courtbook.in (neutral report), deccanherald.com (neutral report), Syndicated copy (carried by timesnownews.com, telanganatoday.com), rediff.com (neutral report), livelaw.in (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 5 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.
Update, 4 November 2026: this story now draws on 6 sources.
