NEW DELHI: Supreme Court used its exclusive powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to grant divorce to a man repeatedly assaulted by his wife in the US during a two-month-old marriage and quashed as “illegal” the decision of authorities to impound his passport after the woman lodged several FIRs in India against him. The ferocity of the assault prompted the man to call the police in the US twice within two months, after which the woman was charged with second-degree assault. They lived together for a total of 80 days – they got married on Feb 19, 2018 – before she came back to India and refused to return to the US.In India, she allegedly threw her mother-in-law out of the matrimonial home, forcing her to seek shelter in her daughter’s house. She lodged eight cases against the man and his mother. The authorities, taking note of the criminal cases, unilaterally impounded the man’s passport. The man then moved SC. A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Sandeep Mehta found that the marriage was filled with acrimony and that there is no child born from the wedlock.Though the woman argued that she did not want divorce or alimony, the bench said the marriage appeared to have broken down irretrievably and that no useful purpose, emotional or practical, would be served by continuing the soured relationship. “This is a fit case warranting the exercise of the discretion conferred under Article 142(1)…” it said and ordered the husband to pay Rs 25 lakh as permanent alimony.Referring to the impounding of the man’s passport on the mere ground that the woman had filed several cases in various courts, the bench said, “we find that the impounding the man’s passport under Section 10 of the Passport Act, 1967, was carried out without granting him an opportunity to be heard. This clear violation of the principles of natural justice renders the act of impounding the passport ex facie illegal”.
Unilateral impounding of passport illegal: SC
