Cricket player Shikhar Dhawan and her estranged wife were awarded a divorce by the Delhi family court on Wednesday. The judge also stated that Dhawan, the petitioner, is entitled to a divorce decision based on cruelty. Judge Harish Kumar’s family court remarked during the dissolution of their 11-year marriage.
“There is no dispute that both parties had agreed to take divorce by mutual consent and that their marriage is otherwise dead long ago and have not been living as husband and wife since August 8, 2020.” Harish Kumar said.
“Respondent’s/ estranged wife intentional decision to leave this matter uncontested also shows her desire that the court should pass decree of divorce even at the cost of holding her guilty of the matrimonial offence as she knows that no harm could be caused to her even if she is held to have treated the petitioner with cruelty because she has already obtained sufficient favourable orders from the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Australia,” the court said.
“This thought of her has given her the courage to not abide by the order dated March 2, 2023 and June 6. 2023 of this court deliberately and intentionally. Hence, the facts and circumstances of the present case as discussed above petitioners are entitled to a decree of divorce on the grounds of cruelty,” Court added.
The court further stated that the marriage between the parties herein, which was consummated on December 30, 2012, in accordance with Sikh rites at Gurudwara, Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, is hereby dissolved by the decree of divorce on the grounds listed in Section 13(1)(a) of the HMA on November 30, 2012.
The Court observed that the petitioner had also asked for his young son’s permanent custody, arguing that it would be ethically, psychologically, and emotionally devastating for the boy to live with the respondent, who had acted badly toward him from the time he was born. Furthermore, it has been argued that the fact that the respondent is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation is a significant argument supporting the petitioner.
For reasons unrelated to merit, the custody dispute in this case is far more complex than any other. In the current Australian case, the court ordered the petitioner to renounce all of his claims for the child’s custody that were still ongoing.
By order dated March 2, 2023, this court ordered the respondent to stop her proceedings regarding the child’s custody in the Australian court. This was primarily because the petitioner had initiated the proceedings regarding the child’s custody here in India, and the Australian court had decided in favor of the petitioner based on the “doctrine of forum convenience”.
Through his plea, Shikar Dhawan claimed that he learned after getting married that the respondent’s main goal in pressuring the petitioner to get married was to extract millions of rupees from him. Soon after the marriage, if the petitioner did not give in to her demands for money, the respondent threatened to produce false and defamatory material against him and distribute it in an attempt to ruin his reputation and cricket career.
