SHIV INDERSEN MIRCHANDANI OF BOMBAY Vs. NATASHA HARISH ADVANI ALIAS NATASHA VIJAYKUMAR TOLARAM MIRCHANDANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "marriages are settled in heaven and they are performed on earth. " Whether and where a marriage can be dissolved is a matter in the domain of the earthly law governing the spouses. But the matrimonial laws are not common everywhere in the world and they differ from country to country. The problem arises when the parties have their domicile in one country and one of them obtains matrimonial relief in a foreign country. The moot question posed in this Notice of Motion is whether the decree passed by a Swedish Court can be recognised by this Court, as being conclusive, or not.

(2.) THIS is a case where a Hindu domiciled in India got married in civil form in New York to a Swedish woman of Christian religion, who lived with him after the marriage for about six years and bore two children to him. Thereafter, she separated from him and went back alongwith her two children to Sweden. Six years after the separation, the man went to Sweden where both of them by mutual consent obtained a decree of divorce. The man then returned back to India and got married to a Hindu woman in Vedic form of marriage from whom he has a son. The children of the first marriage now raise a dispute about the validity of the divorce of their mother and also the validity of the second marriage of their father. They have taken out the present Notice of Motion praying for trying the following issues as preliminary issues-

(3.) THE deceased Indrasen Tolaram Mirchandani, was an industrialist and had a large business interest in several companies including defendant Nos. 9 and 10. He was the Karta and manager of Indrasen Tolaram Mirchandani HUF. He was an Indian national having Indian domicile. On 13-9-1952 he contacted Civil marriage with defendant No. 8 Barbro Baeck, a Christian woman of Sweden in New York. After the marriage both of them lived together first in New York for some time and then in India till May 1958 and were blessed with two children, a son Rajiv (defendant No. 2) and a daughter Kavita (defendant No. 3 ). It appears that there were some serious differences between the deceased and defendant No. 8 who alongwith both the children went back to Sweden to live there permanently. Four years thereafter, i. e. on 15-6-1962 she obtained a decree of judicial separation from the District Court Vasterbegslags, Sweden and two years thereafter i. e. 23-4-1964, the deceased and defendant No. 8 obtained from the same Court a decree of divorce by mutual consent. The deceased thereafter, returned to India married for the second time to Chandra (plaintiff No. 2) as per Hindu Vedic rites on 30-8-1964. The couple got a son-Shiv (plaintiff No. 1) on 13-11-1967.