22-year marriage not consummated, Calcutta High Court grants divorce, Rs 10 lakh alimony

The Calcutta High Court recently ruled in favor of a woman seeking divorce after her 22-year marriage, which never resulted in a consummation, and ordered her husband to pay her a permanent alimony of Rs 10 lakh. The court stated that the couple lived together for only a month following their marriage in 2004 before separating, except for an interim period when they were mandated to reside together by a court order.

Justices Debangsu Basak and Aryak Dutt declared that there were no substantiated reasons or evidence of the husband's physical incapacity that prevented the marriage from being consummated. The court cited the voluntary withdrawal of the couple from each other's company as the reason for the non-consummation. The husband claimed that the wife refused to engage in intercourse, stating that her figure would lose its appeal and no one would take notice of her.

His lawyer, Kaushal Paul, submitted that the wife was not interested in intercourse due to her figure, and that the marriage was not consummated even during the interim period when they were required to live together. However, the wife's lawyer, Prantick Ghosh, claimed that the husband provided no evidence of cruelty or non-consummation, and that the couple had not reached an amicable settlement.

The court acknowledged the efforts made by both attorneys to help the couple arrive at an amicable resolution but found the marriage to be irretrievably broken due to the denial of conjugal rights and the non-consummation of the marriage. The court also examined the assets owned by the husband and determined that a permanent alimony of Rs 10 lakh, payable in four monthly installments beginning November 15, 2026, was appropriate, given that the wife was employed.