CHENNAI: Coronavirus has not only taken away human lives but has also destroyed the institution of marriage, the Madras high court has said. “Since the couples were inside the same house, the best and worst aspects of their characters were exposed and most of them were under pressure, thinking about their future and it had a direct impact on their marital relationship,” the court added.Therefore, those matrimonial disputes that arose during this period -- 2020 to 2022 -- must be dealt with as a separate category and out of box thinking is required to resolve these disputes, Justice N Anand Venkatesh said. The court then directed district judges in Tamil Nadu to collect data from family courts dealing with matrimonial disputes pertaining to those marriages which had taken place between 2020 to 2022.“If the data is placed before this court before the next date of hearing, this court will seek the assistance of counsel who has rich experience in family court disputes and see if a different kind of solution can be adopted in all these cases,” the judge said.“This court is confident that such a step will surely have a positive impact, and it will help many families coming together by resolving the dispute amicably,” the court, adjourning the hearing to Nov 27 for filing the report.
Justice Anand Venkatesh passed the order while confirming an order passed by a family court directing a husband to pay Rs 10,000 as an interim maintenance to his wife pending adjudication of their matrimonial dispute. “Before drawing the curtains in the present case, this court has noticed that, in the last three months, in almost every matrimonial dispute that has reached this court, the marriages had taken place between the parties between 2019 to 2022,” he said.
In more than 95% of those cases, the parties had hardly lived together for six to nine months and in some cases, they had lived together only for three months. Incidentally, that period was when there was a total lockdown due to the pandemic situation, the court said.