An Indian couple has finally divorced after a nearly 20-year legal battle. They lived together for just 20 days.

The main reason for the delay was the overburdened legal system in India.

The husband, now 53 years old, and his ex-wife, now 49 years old, met through a newspaper’s matrimonial classifieds and married in 1998.

The marriage got off to a bad start when the wife was arrested in a case of fraud, that she maintained she was wrongly accused of, as the couple was travelling to a temple to have their marriage blessed. She was taken in by police for her alleged involvement in a case of “misappropriation of funds”.

While she was in Delhi facing trial, the husband applied for a divorce on the grounds of “cruelty”. He claimed police interrogated him, police had contacted his work colleagues, and his accounts were audited to check if he was also involved in the case. He said this caused him severe mental and emotional hardship.

The wife and her legal team accused her husband of ‘abandoning’ her and leaving her to fend for herself and the couple’s daughter, whom she revealed she was pregnant with just before her trial commenced.

The case dragged on for almost 20 years.

The judge declared that the couple’s marriage had “irretrievably broken down”. The pair “should have settled their differences in an amicable manner instead of suffering the agony of a protracted matrimonial litigation” the Judge added.

Dharmesh Sharma, the principal judge of the Family Court, was reported as saying delays in the court system “casts a very sickening feeling in my mind” but also added that somewhere the two parties and their counsel too had a role to play in the delay of judgement.

While there are delays in the Australian Family Court system and some highly protracted property settlements have been documented, it is unlikely that the granting of a divorce would be stalled as it is a separate legal process to that of splitting property.

Read more:

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The good the bad and the ugly of my day in Family Court

Contributions made after separation: Why quick settlements can be vital

How to know when you are ready to start dating after divorce: 3 tips for women

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Published by Divorce Resource