Supreme Court to decide on Sushil Kumar Shinde daughter’s divorce plea

The Supreme Court has said that it will decide the lingering matrimonial dispute between Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s daughter Smriti and her estranged husband Sanjay Pahariya on merits, as the litigating couple could not arrive at a settlement even after its mediation.

In July, the court had asked Smriti and Sanjay to arrive at a resolution of the dispute. Concerned with the tranquility in the matrimonial home where two children are growing up, the court had asked the spouses to “make an attempt for an amicable settlement and any possibility or chance of reconciliation”.

The couple appeared before a bench headed by justice GS Singhvi on Monday. They met in the judge’s chamber without any aide. However, the court later said the parties could not arrive at a settlement. 

Smriti had first moved the Supreme Court on December 17, 2009, accusing her Mumbai-based husband of deliberately missing their divorce proceedings after agreeing to go their separate ways. She had said that her marriage had suffered an “irretrievable breakdown”.

She said the procedural snarls involved in amending the Hindu Marriage Act,  incorporating ‘irretrievable breakdown’ as a legitimate ground for seeking divorce without any delay, had lengthened her agony.  

The apex court’s strong recommendation that irretrievable breakdown is included as a ground for divorce in the Hindu Marriage Act, the government last week agreed to do so.