Supreme Court ended a decade-long dispute it called a “matrimonial battle of Mahabharata”, quashing 80 cases and ordering Rs.5 crore alimony after noting the lawyer-husband misused legal expertise to hinder his wife’s maintenance and custody proceedings for years.
The Supreme Court brought a decade-long divorce dispute to a close, describing it as a “matrimonial battle of Mahabharata”.
A Bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta directed the husband who is an advocateto pay Rs.5 crore in alimony after finding that he had misused his legal knowledge to launch more than 80 proceedings against his wife, her family and her lawyers.
The Court dissolved the marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown and quashed all pending litigation, seeking to put a final end to the harassment.
The Court said,
“This is a supremely fit case…to annul the marriage…but also to terminate all proceedings initiated and pending inter se, including those against the relatives and legal counsels, in order to do complete justice and provide a quietus to this decade-long dispute which has crossed all limits and has assumed the status of a matrimonial battle of Mahabharata,”
The couple had married in 2010 and separated in 2016. The Court found that the husband, by virtue of his profession, deliberately frustrated his wife’s claims for maintenance and custody by initiating disciplinary complaints before bar councils and bringing criminal cases against her counsel.
The Bench described his behaviour as “hostile, cantankerous and vindictive”.
At one point he even filed a baseless writ petition directly in the Supreme Court, alleging violations of his fundamental rights arising from the matrimonial feud and his wife’s purportedly false statements.
That petition was dismissed in April 2025 as “frivolous and malicious”; the Court refused his request to withdraw it and imposed costs of Rs.5 lakh.
These proceedings reached the Supreme Court after the Bombay High Court declined the wife’s request for a time-bound recovery of maintenance arrears. Her execution proceedings had been effectively stalled in a Bandra family court for over two years due to the lack of a presiding officer.
When the High Court disposed of her petition in September 2024, it only noted that a judge had been appointed and did not fix any deadline for recovery, prompting her to approach the Supreme Court.
A key issue before the Bench was the husband’s claim of financial inability to pay.
The wife alleged he had resigned as director of family companies and enrolled as an advocate specifically to avoid his obligations. The Court accepted this view, calling his professed insolvency an “artificial veil” to escape paternal and matrimonial responsibilities.
The Bench also observed that the wife was living in a Mumbai apartment owned by her father-in-law, worth around Rs.5 crore property the husband wanted her to vacate.
To break the impasse, the Court ordered a consolidated payment of Rs.5 crore by the husband as full and final settlement covering alimony, child support and litigation costs; the earlier Rs.5 lakh cost award was adjusted within this sum.
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The mother was awarded sole custody of the couple’s two minor sons, while the father was granted monthly visitation rights. The Court stipulated that once the wife receives the Rs.5 crore in full, she must peacefully vacate the Mumbai flat.
Finally, the Bench required the husband to give an undertaking that he will not initiate any further proceedings against his wife, her relatives or her lawyers, warning that any breach would attract severe consequences.
Senior Advocate Amit Rawal represented the wife; the husband appeared in person.
Case Title: XXX v. YYY
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