In Ajay Kumar Raut v. Soni Devi, Miscellaneous Appeal No. 647 of 2024 (decided 8 September 2026), a Division Bench of Justice Bibek Chaudhuri and Justice Rana Vikram Singh of the Patna High Court dissolved a marriage under Section 13(1A)(ii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The husband had obtained a decree of restitution of conjugal rights in July 2018; the wife did not resume cohabitation thereafter. When his subsequent divorce petition was dismissed by the Family Court, the High Court reversed on appeal, holding that the absence of restitution "for a period of one year or upwards after passing of the decree" is itself a complete statutory ground. The decision is a clean application of a route to divorce that practitioners often underuse.
The marriage and the litigation
The parties married in January 2014. The wife left the matrimonial home; a court-facilitated reconciliation in May 2016 broke down amid allegations of assault, and she declined to return. The husband sued for restitution of conjugal rights in 2015 and obtained a decree on 10 July 2018. Cohabitation was never resumed. He then petitioned for divorce; the Family Court dismissed the petition, and the wife pressed cruelty allegations and criminal complaints in response. The husband appealed.
The High Court's reasoning
"There has been no restitution of conjugal rights as between the parties for marriage for a period of one year or upwards after passing of the decree" — the statutory condition of Section 13(1A)(ii) stood satisfied, and "the marriage between the appellant and the respondent is declared to be dissolved by a decree of divorce."
The Division Bench treated the question as the statute frames it: not who was the better spouse, but whether the decree of restitution had in fact been followed by restitution within a year. Six years had passed without cohabitation. The Family Court's refusal to give effect to the statutory ground could not stand.
How the RCR-to-divorce route works
Observations for Delhi practice
Three lessons travel well to Delhi's family courts. First, an RCR decree is rarely an end in itself; in contested matrimonial strategy it functions chiefly as the foundation for a later Section 13(1A) petition, and parties should diarise the one-year mark. Second, respondents who neither comply with an RCR decree nor challenge it should understand the consequence: the decree quietly ripens into a divorce ground against them. Third, the pendency of cross-proceedings — maintenance claims, criminal complaints — does not suspend Section 13(1A); those proceedings continue on their own track and, as this site has covered elsewhere, maintenance rights survive the divorce decree itself. Where the marriage is factually dead, the RCR route often supplies the least acrimonious statutory exit, with the financial questions negotiated around it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Section 13(1A)(ii) HMA provide?
Either party to a marriage may seek divorce on the ground that there has been no restitution of conjugal rights between them for one year or more after the passing of a decree for restitution of conjugal rights in a proceeding to which they were parties. The provision converts a year of non-compliance with an RCR decree into a ground of divorce available to both spouses.
Can the spouse who obtained the RCR decree also use this ground?
Yes — Section 13(1A) is expressly available to "either party". The main qualification is Section 23(1)(a): a petitioner cannot take advantage of his or her "own wrong", so a spouse who actively prevented compliance with the decree — for instance, by refusing to receive the other despite the decree — may face that bar. Mere failure of the marriage to revive is not such a wrong.
How is non-resumption of cohabitation proved?
Largely by the undisputed timeline: the RCR decree, the parties' continued separate residence, absence of any evidence of resumed cohabitation, and the petitioner's testimony. The respondent can defeat the ground only by showing cohabitation was in fact resumed or that the petitioner wrongfully prevented it.
Is this route faster than a cruelty or desertion petition?
Often, yes. Cruelty and desertion require proof of conduct and intention, invariably contested. Under Section 13(1A)(ii) the fact in issue is narrow — was there restitution within a year of the decree? — which is why an unexecuted RCR decree frequently becomes the cleanest path to dissolution.