Shikha w/o Varun Surekha v. State of Odisha & Others; Sangita Shivkumar Surekha, 2026 INSC 1060 (28 September 2026)
What the case was about
This dispute began as a pair of transfer petitions filed by a wife seeking to move pending criminal and domestic-violence proceedings from Cuttack, Odisha, to Mumbai. But it soon took on a far larger dimension when the husband invoked a rarely used constitutional provision—Article 142, which lets the Supreme Court pass any order necessary to do “complete justice”—asking the Court to dissolve their marriage outright and erase every related lawsuit flying back and forth between the couple and their relatives across four cities. The case raised a fundamental question: can the apex court bypass trial courts entirely to grant a divorce and quash an entire ecosystem of inter-connected civil and criminal litigation?
The key facts
Shikha and Varun Surekha were married in December 2016 in Cuttack. By 2022, irreconcilable differences had driven them apart, and they began living separately. What followed was not merely a separation but a litigation explosion. By the time the matter reached the Supreme Court, numerous civil and criminal proceedings were pending in courts and police stations in Cuttack, Mumbai, Noida, and Delhi. The docket included charges under the Indian Penal Code, claims under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, and matrimonial petitions involving other family members.
Faced with this sprawling docket, Shikha filed transfer petitions—one criminal and one civil—to bring certain cases to Mumbai. While those were pending, Varun filed an interlocutory application under Article 142 of the Constitution, urging the Court to declare the marriage irretrievably broken and to quash all pending proceedings. The Court referred the parties to mediation, but the effort failed. Eventually, however, the parties edged toward a settlement. By an order dated 05 August 2026, the Court recorded that Shikha was ready to accept a divorce by mutual consent on payment of permanent alimony. The Court fixed the full and final settlement at ₹35,00,000, and the husband complied.
The questions before the Court
The bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan had to answer three crucial questions:
First, can the Supreme Court, exercising its powers under Article 142, dissolve a marriage by a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown—or by mutual consent—without sending the parties back to a trial court? Second, can it simultaneously quash all pending civil and criminal proceedings between the parties and their family members under the same power? And third, should the wife’s transfer petitions be allowed?
What the Court decided and why
The Court answered the first two questions in the affirmative and disposed of the transfer petitions as moot.
Relying on its earlier decisions in Shilpa Sailesh and Rinku Baheti, the Court held that Article 142(1) empowers the Supreme Court to do “complete justice” in a cause or matter, including passing a decree that a family court or trial court could ordinarily pass (para 20). The Court observed that the grant of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown rests on the exercise of discretion to do complete justice between the parties, not as a matter of right (para 21).
This discretion must be evaluated on objective criteria, including the period of separation, the nature of allegations, the pendency of multiple proceedings, and the parties’ socio-economic status. It can be exercised only when the parties have mutually agreed to part ways, fulfilled substantive statutory conditions under Sections 13 and 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and arrived at a genuine settlement addressing alimony and other claims.
Here, the facts met these standards. The parties had been separated since 2022, their marriage had reached a deadlock with no possibility of reconciliation, and they had freely arrived at a genuine settlement. Relegating them to a trial court would only perpetuate a dead marriage and burden an already overloaded judicial system with proceedings spread across several cities. Consequently, the Court allowed Varun’s application and dissolved the December 2016 marriage by a decree of divorce passed under Article 142 (para 24).
Going further, the Court quashed not only the cases specifically catalogued by the parties, but also “any other cases being of either civil or criminal nature filed inter se between the parties” (para 25). It also directed both sides not to initiate fresh litigation against each other. The transfer petitions, rendered unnecessary by the comprehensive settlement, were disposed of.
Why it matters
The judgment is a reminder that Article 142 is more than a rhetorical flourish; it is a practical tool to untangle matrimonial disputes that have metastasized into multi-forum warfare. By dissolving the marriage and wiping the slate clean in one omnibus order, the Court spared the parties years of further litigation and spared multiple lower courts the task of processing related cases individually.
At the same time, the decision reaffirms that this power is not automatic. The Court underscored that it must be exercised only when parties have fulfilled substantive statutory conditions under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and arrived at a genuine settlement that protects both spouses, evaluated against objective criteria such as the period of separation, the nature of allegations, the pendency of proceedings, and the parties’ socio-economic status. The emphasis on a meaningful waiting period, permanent financial settlement, and voluntary agreement shows that convenience alone will not suffice; “complete justice” demands substantive fairness too. The ruling also dovetails with the larger judicial push, reflected in statutes like Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure and Section 9 of the Family Courts Act, to favour settlement over prolonged court battles.
For couples trapped in cross-country litigation, the decision offers a possible exit ramp. For the wider public, it illustrates how the Supreme Court can act as a court of first and last resort when the only alternative is endless, mutually destructive litigation.