{"id":374291,"date":"2026-01-31T11:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=374291"},"modified":"2026-02-02T18:05:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T12:35:04","slug":"del-hc-on-waiver-of-one-year-bar-under-hma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2026\/01\/31\/del-hc-on-waiver-of-one-year-bar-under-hma\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage in law, not in substance: Delhi HC waives one-year bar under Section 14 HMA for couple who never cohabited"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Disclaimer: This has been reported after the availability of the order of the Court and not on media reports so as to give an accurate report to our readers.<\/p>\n

Delhi High Court:<\/span> In an appeal filed under Section 19<\/a> of the Family Courts Act, 1984<\/a> read with Section 28<\/a> of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955<\/a> (HMA), challenging the Family Court’s order dated 09-12-2025 wherein it held that parties had failed to establish a case of “exceptional hardship” and that they had not made sufficient efforts to preserve the marriage, a Division Bench of Vivek Chaudhary and Renu Bhatnagar, JJ., held that considering the circumstances of present cases insistence on completion of one year would serve no meaningful purpose and would amount to exceptional hardship justifying waiver of one-year bar under HMA. The Court set aside the Family Court’s order and granted leave to the parties to present their joint petition for divorce by mutual consent under Section 13-B(1)<\/a> HMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the instant matter, the parties were married on 30-03-2025 at Arya Samaj Mandir, Khirki Village, New Delhi. The marriage was subsequently registered on 02-04-2025 before the Office of the District Magistrate, South, New Delhi. It was an admitted position that “the parties never cohabited even for a single day, the marriage was never consummated, and immediately after the marriage, both parties continued to reside separately at their respective parental homes.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Owing to irreconcilable differences and complete incompatibility discovered immediately after marriage, the parties jointly decided to seek dissolution of marriage by mutual consent. Since the joint petition under Section 13-B(1)<\/a> of the HMA<\/a> was presented within seven months of marriage, they filed an application under Section 14<\/a> HMA<\/a> seeking leave to present the petition prior to the expiry of one year.<\/p>\n

The Family Court declined to grant leave and held that the parties had failed to establish a case of “exceptional hardship” within the meaning of the proviso to Section 14(1) so as to permit presentation of a petition for divorce by mutual consent before completion of one year of marriage and that they had not made sufficient efforts to preserve the marriage. It further observed that registration of marriage shortly after solemnization diluted their claim of hardship.<\/p>\n

The parties submitted that the respondent was residing in Canada while the appellant was residing in India. The appellant was required to take care of her aged parents and was neither willing nor in a position to relocate, while the respondent was also unable to relocate to India. These circumstances were stated to be unavoidable and beyond their control, resulting in their continued separation and leaving “no realistic or practical possibility of resumption of matrimonial life.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The relevant statutory provisions and precedents relied on —<\/p>\n