A 23-year marriage between a Gujarat-based couple has legally come to an end after the Gujarat High Court upheld a family court order dissolving their marriage, a dispute that began in the kitchen and centred around the wife’s refusal to consume onion and garlic due to her religious beliefs.
A division bench of Justices Sangeeta Vishen and Nisha Thakore dismissed the wife’s appeal challenging the divorce but noted that she no longer opposed the dissolution of marriage, as recorded in the order dated November 27.
The court said the “trigger point” for long-standing differences was the wife’s non-consumption of onion and garlic because she followed the Swaminarayan sect, whose followers refrain from eating these ingredients. Since their wedding in 2002, the husband’s mother prepared a separate meal without onion and garlic for the wife, while the rest of the family consumed both.
“Following the religion and consumption of onion and garlic was the trigger point of the differences between the parties,” the High Court noted.
Although the wife had initially challenged the family court’s order, during the High Court proceedings she expressed no objection to the divorce itself and confined her appeal to the issue of maintenance.
“The wife was not contesting the dissolution of the marriage, but the concern is of the alimony granted by the learned Judge,” the order recorded.
The dispute stretched back over a decade. The husband had earlier filed an application with the Mahila Police Station alleging “torture and harassment”. The wife left the matrimonial home in 2007 along with their child. In 2013, the husband filed for divorce before the Ahmedabad family court citing cruelty and desertion.
The family court allowed the divorce in May 2024.
During the hearing, the wife submitted that the maintenance directed earlier had not been paid for 18 months. Her counsel informed the court that the total outstanding maintenance amounted to Rs 13,02,000, of which she had received Rs 2,72,000 as interim support, while the husband had deposited Rs 4,27,000 during the proceedings.
The High Court directed that the deposited amount be transferred to the wife after due verification and ordered the husband to deposit the remaining sum before the family court, which will transfer the amount to her bank account.
With these directions, the High Court upheld the divorce, bringing closure to a matrimonial dispute that began with a dietary choice and ultimately dissolved a marriage of over two decades.
