Supreme Court On Marriage: On Monday (May 1), the Supreme Court can give an important decision regarding the use of the vast powers under Article 142. The Constitution Bench of the Apex Court will decide whether the Supreme Court has the right to annul a marriage directly or it should hear appeals only after the decision of the lower court.
For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has exceptionally exercised the vast powers under Article 142 to annul broken marriages. However, in September 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether it can annul marriages between couples living separately without the consent of both partners.
The constitution bench has reserved the decision
A five-judge constitution bench of Justices SK Kaul, Sanjeev Khanna, AS Oka, Vikram Nath and JK Maheshwari had reserved its verdict in the matter on September 29, 2022. While reserving the judgement, the court had said that social change takes “some time” and sometimes it is easy to bring a law but it is difficult to persuade the society to change with it.
The apex court had also taken note of the fact that the family plays a big role in marriages in India. The court is considering that if the court finds that the marriage has completely broken down but one party is opposing the divorce. In such a situation, whether his comprehensive powers to annul the marriage under Article 142 are hampered in any way.
What is Article 142?
Article 142 of the Constitution gives vast powers to the Supreme Court, under which it can pronounce judgments to do “complete justice” in any matter pending before it.
Regarding this, two questions were sent to the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. Should such jurisdiction not be exercised at all by the SC under Article 142 or whether such exercise should be left to be determined in the facts of each case.
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