A single judge bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court held that, a divorce petition is maintainable within 1 year from date of marriage, if there are Pleadings about Exceptional Hardship.
From Paras 16 and 17,
Jelakara Chandra Sekhar Vs Nil on 16 Jun 202216. Applying the above stated legal position to the facts of the case on hand, this Court finds merit in the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioners. The statement of the petitioners on oath that they are living separately since 3 days after the marriage, that the same was not consummated and that they had no mental stress in arriving at a conclusion to separate and on the contrary, continuing their relationship causes mental trauma and agony are the factors which weigh to exercise discretion in their favour for waiving the period of one year and the case on hand fall in the category of exceptional hardship as continuance of marriage would be more traumatic than dissolution of the same.
17. Further, the learned Trial Judge instead of examining the specific case of the petitioners herein with reference to the averments made in the affidavit in I.A.No.20 of 2022, based its Order on Savanam Giridhar Reddy‟s case referred to supra arising in a different fact situation and the reasoning in the decisions relied on by the learned counsel aptly applies to the instant case.
Index of Divorce Matters here.