[Breaking] Case on scope of Supreme Court’s power under Article 142 to dissolve marriage listed before Constitution Bench tomorrow

Can the Supreme Court in exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution dissolve a marriage between consenting parties without referring them to the Family Court to wait for the mandatory period prescribed under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act? (Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan)..A case involving this important legal question is listed for hearing on Wednesday before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian and Hrishikesh Roy. The case was referred to a five-judge Bench nearly five years ago on June 29, 2016 by a Division Bench of Justices Shiva Kirti Singh and R Banumathi (both retired) in a transfer petition. .In a previous order, the Bench had adverted to an earlier order passed in the matter on May 6, 2015, which had framed the following two legal questions for consideration by a larger Bench:1. What could be the broad parameters for exercise of powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to dissolve a marriage between the consenting parties without referring the parties to the Family Court to wait for the mandatory period prescribed under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act?2. Whether the exercise of such jurisdiction under Article 142 should not be made at all or whether such exercise should be left to be determined in the facts of every case?.By way of its May 2015 order, the Court had also appointed four Senior Advocates - V Giri, Dushyant Dave, Indira Jaising and Meenakshi Arora to assist it in the matter.The Court in its 2016 order noted these aspects and referred the matter to a Constitution Bench..The matter was referred to directly to a Constitution Bench in view of Article 145(3) of the Constitution.“In our view also, the two questions formulated earlier require a reference to Constitution Bench on account of clause 3 of Article 145 of the Constitution. It is noted that in the notes furnished on behalf of the Attorney General, in paragraph 5 two other questions of law have also been indicated which may require consideration by a Constitution Bench. It would be better to leave the matter to the discretion of the Constitution Bench itself whether it will be inclined to consider those two other questions of law or not,” the 2016 order stated..[Read the 2016 order]