Tuesday , November 17 , 2009
New Delhi, Nov. 16: A divorce obtained in a foreign court is valid in India, the Supreme Court has ruled, clarifying a long-standing grey area.
Divorces are easier to obtain in many foreign countries than in India, where the grounds for dissolution of marriage are limited and divorces are usually not awarded in the absence of one of the parties.
Friday’s ruling by the apex court means, for instance, that if an NRI marries an Indian girl, leaves her behind and obtains a divorce in his country of residence, Indian courts must accept that the marriage stands dissolved.
Till now, the issue of divorces obtained abroad had been open for each court to interpret in its own way in the absence of a clear directive.
The ruling came in the case of Pashaura Singh, who had divorced his Canadian wife in Canada and remarried in India. The apex court quashed the bigamy charges against him, upheld by a high court. The apex court observed that although his first wife claimed she was unaware of the divorce proceedings, the decree had neither been stayed nor set aside.
Pashaura was a Punjab resident when he married Kamaljeet Kaur, a Canadian citizen, in 1997 and settled down in Canada with her. In 2001, he divorced her in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. He remarried in India and returned to live in Canada, prompting Kamaljeet’s brother to lodge an FIR in Punjab.
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