B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 5 Family Law I Oct 2025 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: what dissolution means and how it differs from annulment and judicial separation; divorce on fault grounds (section 13(1)); the wife's special grounds (section 13(2)); breakdown after a decree (section 13(1A)); divorce by mutual consent (section 13B, Amardeep Singh); irretrievable breakdown (Shilpa Sailesh); the limits in sections 13A, 14, 15 and 23; and a critical evaluation.

Introduction

Under classical Hindu law marriage was a sacrament: permanent and indissoluble. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 changed this. A Hindu marriage can now be dissolved by a decree of divorce.

Three remedies must be kept apart:

1. Annulment under sections 11 and 12 says the marriage was void or voidable from the start.
2. Judicial separation under section 10 lets the spouses live apart, but the marriage continues.
3. Divorce under sections 13 and 13B ends a valid marriage. This is dissolution in the strict sense.

8. Renunciation: the respondent has renounced the world by entering a religious order.
9. Presumed death: the respondent has not been heard of as alive for seven years by those who would naturally have heard.

These are fault grounds. The petitioner must prove that the other spouse did something wrong, or suffers from a condition the law recognises.

Two grounds explained.

1. Desertion means the intentional and permanent abandonment of one spouse by the other, without consent and without reasonable cause. Four things must be shown: the fact of separation, the intention to end cohabitation, the absence of consent, and the absence of reasonable cause. The Explanation to section 13(1) includes wilful neglect. So a spouse who drives the other out of the home by misconduct may be guilty of desertion, though it was the other who left. This is called constructive desertion.

2. there has been no restitution of conjugal rights for one year or more after a decree under section 9.

This is a limited breakdown ground. Even the party against whom the earlier decree was passed may use it.

Mode 4: Divorce by mutual consent, section 13B

1. First motion, section 13B(1). Both spouses present a joint petition. They must show three things. They have been living separately for one year or more. They have not been able to live together. And they have mutually agreed to dissolve the marriage.
2. Second motion, section 13B(2). Both parties move the court again not earlier than six months and not later than eighteen months after the first petition. The court must be satisfied that consent still exists.

In Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur, (2017) 8 SCC 746, the Supreme Court held that the six-month period is directory, not mandatory. The family court may waive it where mediation has failed and maintenance and custody are settled.

3. Section 15: a divorced person may remarry only when the decree is final. That is when there is no right of appeal, the time for appeal has expired, or an appeal has been dismissed.
4. Section 23: the court grants relief only if the petitioner is not taking advantage of his or her own wrong. There must be no collusion and no unnecessary delay. And the court must first try to bring about reconciliation.

The modes at a glance

3. Delay. Divorce cases take years in practice, which defeats the purpose of quick relief.
4. Economic protection on divorce depends on separate maintenance laws, and there is no rule for sharing property acquired during marriage.

Conclusion. The Hindu Marriage Act allows dissolution by divorce on fault grounds (section 13(1)) and on the wife's special grounds (section 13(2)). It also allows divorce after a decree not followed by cohabitation (section 13(1A)), and by mutual consent (section 13B). The Supreme Court may also dissolve a marriage that has irretrievably broken down under Article 142 (Shilpa Sailesh). The law has moved far from the idea of an indissoluble sacrament. But it still rests largely on fault, and a general breakdown ground remains the main reform that is needed.