FROM SACRAMENT TO STATUTE: A CRITICAL STUDY OF DIVORCE UNDER THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955

Classical Hindu law treated marriage as an indissoluble sacrament disallowing the dissolution of marital ties unless otherwise the custom permits. Divorce was unknown to the laws of Dharamshastras as marriage was regarded as a sacramental union of husband and wife. Statutory divorce entered Hindu law only with the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (Hereinafter referred to as “HMA”), which was substantially reshaped by the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976. This article traces the movement from the sacramental conception of marriage to the statutory regime of dissolution; examines the fault, mutual-consent and breakdown theories of divorce; and analyses the grounds available under the Act, including the grounds open only to the wife and divorce by mutual consent. It then considers the procedural safeguards that accompany the remedy, namely the one-year bar under Section 14, the cooling-off period under Section 13B (2) and the restriction on remarriage under Section 15 and reflects on the consequences of divorce for children and society. Landmark court rulings, along with recent developments in Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur and Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan are discussed throughout the article and the debate continues over irretrievable breakdown as an independent ground.