The case is described as the story of husband (Sukhendu Das) and the wife (Rita Mukherji) District Judges working in the State of West Bengal. They tied the knot of marriage in, 1992 as per the Special Marriage Act, 1954.In 1993 a girl child was born out of the marriage. Then disputes started arising between the couple and they started living separately in the year 2000. The husband filed a petition for divorce under section 27 of Special Marriage Act.
The husband alleged that the conflict arose because of the disrespectful behavior of his wife towards his ailing father. He contended that his wife deserted him and refused to give the custody of the child to him and that his wife did not even care to visit him even when he was seriously ill. The husband also alleged that his wife used inappropriate language and threatened him to file criminal complaint if he filed the petition for divorce. The wife filed a reply denying the allegations made in the application filed by her husband for divorce. She confuted all the allegations in the application and sought for dismissal of the application for divorce. She did not participate in the proceedings of trial court after filing the reply. The trial court dismissed the application for divorce stating that the husband failed to prove cruelty on part of wife and the husband did not make out a case of divorce. The High Court of Calcutta in 2012 dismissed the appeal filed against the decision of trial court. The High Court, taking note of the fact that the Husband and the Wife are judicial officers, tried for conciliation between the parties. However, despite the effort of the High Court, both Husband and the wife did not appear personally before the High Court. The wife, did not appear before the trial court after filing of written statement, did not respond to the request made by the High Court for personal appearance. Despite service of Notice she did not show any interest to appear in this Court also which clearly depicted that the wife was not interested in living with the husband and thus making it clear that for all practical purposes there is an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.
The Supreme Court exercised its inherent powers under Article 142 of the Constitution for dissolution of marriage stating that the marriage is not workable, emotionally dead, beyond retrieva land has broken down irretrievably, even if the facts of the case does not exhibit any ground for divorce. The husband and the wife had been living separately for more than 17 years and it would not be possible for the parties to live together and there is no purpose in compelling the parties to live together in wedlock.
After relying on all the facts Appeal was allowed and the application for divorce filed by the husband was allowed. It was held that Refusal to participate in proceeding for divorce and forcing the Husband to stay in a dead marriage would itself constitute mental cruelty.

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