Divorce is not for live-in couples- Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court has held that live-in relationships are not legally recognized as a marriage in India, and thus, such couples cannot seek divorce.

The court observed that in live-in relationships, two parties decide to live together under a mere agreement not based on personal law or the Special Marriage Act.

Let's understand what happened in the case.

An inter-faith couple (one a Hindu, the other a Christian) after registering an agreement have lived together as husband and wife since 2006. They also had a child, who's now 16 years old. Their marriage was never registered under the Special Marriage Act.

As they no longer wanted to continue their relationship, they moved to the family court with a joint petition for mutual divorce under the Special Marriage Act. But the court rejected their plea as they were not married under the Special Marriage Act.

They appealed to the High Court, which again was disposed of. The court said that the law recognizes divorce as a means of separating a legal marriage. There may be a situation where the relationship qualifies for the creation of reciprocal obligations or duties elsewhere. But that does not mean that a live-in relationship can be recognized as divorce.

The methods of divorce are peculiar in our country and can be customized only through the legislation, the court added. The extra-judicial divorce followed in some communities also got recognition through statutory laws. All other forms of divorce are prescribed in the statutes.

The main ingredient is that the law has not yet recognized the live-in relationship as a marriage. The law accords recognition only if the marriage is solemnized by personal law or by secular law like the Special Marriage Act. If the parties decide to live together by a mutual agreement, that by itself will not qualify them to claim it as a marriage and claim divorce thereon, stated by the division bench of Kerala High Court, by Justice A Muhamed Mustaque and Justice Sophy Thomas.

Parties can be allowed to divorce only if they are married as per the recognized form of marriage, the bench stated.

The high court also ruled that the family court should have returned the petition and stated that it was unmaintainable since it lacked jurisdiction in the case at hand to consider such a claim for separation in the first place.

There is currently no legal recognition of a marriage established between parties through a contract to issue a divorce. The family court also lacks jurisdiction to consider such a divorce suit in such cases, the bench ruled.

For now, the parties have been provided with the liberty to work off their remedy elsewhere, thus disposing of the appeal by the High Court.

What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to share them in the comments.