Picture used for representational purpose only

AHMEDABAD: It took 33 long years for the courts to grant divorce to Dhanjibhai Parmar (65) from his first wife. With the divorce, his marriage with his second wife became legal after 28 years.

The lengthy legal battle was also made more complicated by Parmar's second marriage in between, when a court granted ex parte divorce to him for a brief period.

More than three decades later, the first wife showed "magnanimity" and told the Gujarat high court that she would not contest the divorce case because she did not want that the three children of her husband, from his second wife, continue to bear a "stigma" that their parents' marriage was illegal.

In this case, Parmar had wed Indiraben in 1978. They had a son in 1983. Following bitter matrimonial discord, Parmar filed a divorce petition in the city civil court in 1986. He got ex parte divorce in February 1988 on the ground that his wife had deserted him. Within a month of getting divorce, Parmar married Ramilaben.

The couple had three children. But the family continued to be haunted by the divorce litigation. Seven months after the civil court had granted the ex parte divorce decree to Parmar, Indiraben had approached the court and objected to the court's decision arguing that she could not live at her matrimonial home because of cruelty on part of her husband.

Man told to pay Rs 17 lakh in alimony

In 1991, the civil court finally rejected Parmar's divorce petition jeopardizing the legal status of his second marriage. He immediately approached the high court against this.

His case remained pending in the HC for 28 years. when it came up for hearing, the HC said, "...it was realized that much water has flown and the parties also have settled in their own respective lives..".

The Gujarat high court requested both the parties for amicable settlement because the “irretrievable breakdown of the marriage”. Three decades later, the husband had retired from his job in an insurance company and the wife too had retired from her job in the state government’s agriculture department. The woman’s advocate submitted that her husband had never paid any maintenance to her. Though she gets pension to sustain herself, she does not have a house of her own. Hence, the husband should pay her alimony.

Finally, the high court last week quashed the civil court’s order and granted divorce to Parmar but ordered him to pay Rs 17 lakh to Indiraben towards permanent alimony.

