The Supreme Court has ruled that parties cannot casually walk away from a mediated settlement in matrimonial disputes after accepting its benefits and then initiate fresh legal proceedings, unless they establish 'force, fraud, undue influence or non-compliance' by the other side.
A bench of justices Rajesh Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi said that while a party can legally withdraw consent to divorce by mutual consent before the final decree, it cannot back out of a mediated settlement that resolves all disputes between the parties.
Once such a settlement is reached and authenticated by a mediator, its terms bind both sides and if a party resiles from the agreement without valid grounds such as fraud or coercion, courts must treat the deviation seriously, even imposing 'heavy costs,' since such conduct undermines the very foundation and 'credibility of the mediation process,' the bench said.
The Supreme Court also took strong exception to the wife in the present case withdrawing from a settlement agreement after having acted on it and invoked its powers under Article 142(1) and granted divorce to the couple after holding that their marriage had broken down 'irretrievably.'
The Court also set aside the high court's order, quashed the pending domestic violence proceedings against the husband and the mother-in-law.
