Verbal divorce not valid without following legal procedure: Justice Sajjad Ali

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave remarks during the hearing that without completing legal procedures, marriage cannot be dissolved.

Supreme Court Karachi registry heard the case of wife demanding monthly expenses from husband and the court ordered the husband to pay for all the necessities, Express News reported.

Applicant Rasheed Ahmed Qureshi’s lawyer said that his client has verbally given divorce to wife Sufiya Rasheed, therefore he is not responsible to pay for her monthly expenses.

Court inquired where was the divorce given and for its related documents?

In response, the lawyer said that his witness gave an oral divorce to his wife and the subordinate court has ordered the client to pay Rs5,000 monthly expense to former wife, against which they submitted an application.



Justice Sajjad Ali Shah said that divorce is incomplete without completing legal requirements. Subordinate court can set Rs25,000 as monthly expense instead of Rs5,000 if the court deems fit.

Dismissing the appeal, the court ruled that monthly expense was the right of the wife.

In another case, for the first time, a law has been proposed in the Sindh Assembly giving rights to Hindu widows to re-marry of their own will. Presently, a Hindu woman spends her entire life alone after the death of her husband in March.

“We want to get rid of old and outdated customs, which is why we are going to amend the law and give rights to widows to remarry after six months of ‘iddah’,” Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) parliamentary leader Nand Kumar said. He moved an amendment on Thursday to the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act.