Chandra NaraIn Rai, and anr. Vs. State of Bihar, and ors.

.....that the spouse who has given consent to a petition for divorce cannot unilaterally withdraw the consent and such withdrawal, however, would not take away the jurisdiction of the court to dissolve the marriage by mutual consent, if the consent was otherwise free. the issue that came up for consideration before this court was, whether a party to a petition for divorce by mutual consent under section 13-b of the act, can unilaterally withdraw the consent and whether the consent once given is irrevocable. if petition for divorce is not formally withdrawn and is kept pending then on the date when the court grants the decree, the court has a statutory obligation to hear the parties to ascertain their consent. in our view it is only the mutual consent of the parties which gives the court the jurisdiction to pass a decree for divorce under section 13-b. so in cases under section 13-b, mutual consent of the parties is a jurisdictional fact. the court has to be satisfied about the existence of mutual consent between the parties on some tangible materials which demonstrably disclose such consent." the petition is not withdrawn by either party at any time before passing the decree; the most important requirement for a grant of a divorce by mutual consent is free consent of both the parties......with sanction of the state government to any officer not below the rank of deputy collector and in that view of the matter the division bench has held that there was delegation on 4th september 1997 made with the sanction of the state in favour of deputy director of consolidation to exercise the power of revision. 4. no other provision of law or judgment taking a contrary view was brought to our notice by counsels appearing for the respondents. hence following the aforesaid division bench judgment, it is held that the revisional order dated 10.03.2000 contained in annexure-2 to the writ petition passed by learned deputy director of consolidation, bihar, patna cannot be faulted on account of jurisdiction. 5. since the learned single judge set aside the revisional order and remanded the matter to the director of consolidation only on the ground of lack of jurisdiction in the deputy director to act as revisional authority, the order under appeal is set aside and the matter is remitted back to the writ court to hear the parties afresh and pass any appropriate judgment or order. the appeal is allowed to the aforesaid extent. no cost. 6. since the matter relates to a writ petition filed in the year 2000, let the writ petition be now listed before appropriate bench after three weeks amongst first ten cases.