A PURPOSIVE ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT OF LAWSOF DIVORCE: APPROACH OF THE INDIAN JUDICIARY

Abstract In India even after nearly seven decades of independence, there is still not a special statutory enactment addressing conflict of laws involved in marriage and matrimonial reliefs. Due to this legislative inertia, it has fallen upon the Indian Judiciary to evolve principles governing such cases. Divorce is a particularly complex subject in this regard due to its far reaching implications involving right to remarry, custody of child etc. Furthermore, in India different personal laws provide for divorce on the grounds specified therein which has been a cause of conflict not only from the point of view of private international law, but from the point of view of conflict between the interpersonal laws as well; but a study of such conflict of interpersonal laws in India would be beyond the scope of the present article. The articlefocuses on the judicial approach in India towards divorce in cases involving an international element. The article aims to understand the challenges posed before the courts, the view taken by the courts and the way ahead for divorces in the international context when they come up before Indian courts