Divorce and maintenance in 2026: where the law actually stands

Two things are widely misunderstood about divorce in India, and both cost people time. The first is what irretrievable breakdown actually is. The second is when maintenance starts running.

Irretrievable breakdown is not a ground you can file on

Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act lists the grounds for divorce, and irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not among them. Parliament has never added it. What exists is the Supreme Court's power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice, which it has used to dissolve marriages that have plainly collapsed, and it has continued to do so through 2026 in matters where prolonging the litigation served no purpose. A family court at Jodhpur cannot grant that relief. Filing there on that ground alone wastes a year.

What a family court can decide is cruelty, desertion and the other statutory grounds — or, where both sides agree, mutual consent.

The six-month wait can be waived, but not by asking nicely

A mutual consent petition under Section 13B runs on two motions separated by a statutory period of six months. The Supreme Court has held that the period is directory rather than mandatory and can be waived where the marriage is beyond salvage, the parties have genuinely settled everything, and the wait would only prolong the agony. In practice a waiver succeeds on the quality of the settlement, not on the length of the separation — which is why the terms matter more than the pleading.

Maintenance: which provision, and from when

• The general provision is now Section 144 of the BNSS — what used to be Section 125 CrPC. The numbering changed on 1 July 2024; the substance did not.
• It is religion-neutral. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2024 that a divorced Muslim woman who has not remarried may claim under it, irrespective of her rights under personal law.
• Maintenance ordinarily runs from the date of the application, not the date of the order. That prevents a respondent from gaining by delay — and it means the arrears can be substantial by the time an order is made.
• Both sides are expected to file an affidavit of assets and liabilities. Courts have been directing this for years and increasingly decline to proceed without it.
• That a wife is educated and employable does not by itself end the claim. Earning capacity is one factor among the standard of living, the length of the marriage, the years of separation and the needs of the children.

Where it is filed at Jodhpur

The Family Court at Jodhpur hears divorce, maintenance, custody and restitution. Maintenance under Section 144 BNSS is a magistrate's jurisdiction. Domestic violence proceedings run separately again. It is common for the same dispute to be alive in three places at once, and settling one while ignoring the others is how people find themselves back in court a year later.

When you may not need to litigate at all

Where both sides want the same outcome and the terms are agreed, this is paperwork and a timetable rather than a fight. Courts at Jodhpur refer matrimonial matters to Lok Adalat and to mediation routinely, and a matter that settles there is closed faster and far more cheaply than one that is argued to judgment.

Read next

• Divorce, maintenance and custody
• The Family Court at Jodhpur
• Settling without a trial