Final Consent Judgment: Fill & Download for Free

The “divorce” is effective upon entry of the judgment of divorce. That is a lawsuit between your parents, that is concluded when the judge signs the final judgment. The only time you might have to be present is if there is an actual trial where your parents present evidence as they try to convince the judge how to split up the marital assets. There might be depositions outside of the court before the trial, and you could be deposed to find out what evidence you have about the marital estate. Whether the assets are split by the judge, or they are split through a consent judgment of divorce, that will all be decided before the final hearing when the judge officially declares them divorced. There is no reason that you would have to be present at that final hearing.

Assuming it is well written and fairly negotiated yes. But it only applies to the specific case before the court, not all similar cases with even one fact difference.

This is not as simple an issue as it appears. I’ll try to answer this question from my understanding of the law on this issue, as the judicial opinion on the applicability of a judgment of the court is not that straightforward.Firstly, let me point out that this question would be more of an academic interest. Why? Because as Justice Nariman has pointed out in para 95 of his decision (on Section 377 of IPC), in the last 150 years, less than 200 persons have been prosecuted for committing the offence under Section 377 IPC. So, only about 1 person per year in India has been prosecuted on an average.Let me tell you from my professional experience as a lawyer, many of these cases would perhaps have been filed by women against their own husbands when the marriage goes sour!!! I am writing this since at least on 15-20 occasions, I have been consulted on this issue, as a lawyer. In fact, in my own colleague circles, one particular lady had filed a case under this provision against her own husband (both of them were very senior officers). So, I am trying to extrapolate the data on the basis of my professional experience as a lawyer.Further, this number of 200 persons in 150 years is only of those prosecuted, and not of those convicted. How many of these 200 persons have actually been convicted is something that I could not find in the public domain. And, how many of those convicted are still in jail is another question that has no answer in the public domain.My personal feeling is that persons actually undergoing jail at present may not be more than 10 in the country as a whole.This may be a very inconsequential number, given our population of about 135 crore.Please also remember that what the Supreme Court has done is not to completely strike down offence under Section 377 IPC. It has basically been read down. This offence will not apply where there is consent. This is what has been held by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, if someone forcibly (or without consent) commits an act mentioned in Section 377, he may still be prosecuted, and likewise any such act against animals would still be an offence under Section 377.Now, out of the above 200 persons prosecuted, how many were prosecuted for acts which were committed with consent? Nobody knows the answer. But, only such people would get the benefit of this judgment. My personal guess is that such number would be very small, since my professional experience as a former IPS and as a lawyer tells me that most of the cases actually registered under Section 377 IPC are where the act alleged was forcible or without consent (as I mentioned above, many of these are filed by wives against their own husbands when the marriage goes sour). There would hardly be any case where this offence was registered even where consent was there.Therefore, my personal guess is that there would hardly be any persons who would still be in jail and who were convicted for this offence even though there was consent. Hardly any.So, the benefit of this Supreme Court judgment would be negligible in so far as past offenders are concerned. But, it may have immense effect on the future due to the obvious reasons as more persons are likely to come out in open.Let me also point out that offence under Section 377 IPC has been an emotional issue for some people, but the fact remains that not many persons are booked or prosecuted for this offence, even though this offence existed in law books. Practically, this number can be said to be almost zero, when we find that only about 1 person is prosecuted every year in India as a whole, out of about 135 crore population. And, further, this number includes forcible and/or without consent cases too!!!Of course, as the Supreme Court has pointed out that it is question of right to freedom of individuals, even if the number of such individuals is minuscule.Well, let me now turn to the legal aspects of the applicability of this judgment.Normally, a judgment of the Supreme Court declaring a law, is said to have retrospective effect, unless it is specifically held that it shall have only prospective effect (i.e., that it would apply only to the future incidents / cases).For example, in the case of A.S. Gauraya v. S.N. Thakur, (1986) 2 SCC 709 : 1986 Cri LJ 1074 : AIR 1986 SC 1440, the Supreme Court had held that there is nothing like any prospective operation alone of the law laid down by it and that the law laid down by the Supreme Court applies to all pending proceedings.Likewise, in the case of M.A. Murthy v. State of Karnataka, (2003) 7 SCC 517 : AIR 2003 SC 3821, the Supreme Court held that normally, the decision of the Supreme Court enunciating a principle of law is applicable to all cases irrespective of its stage of pendency because it is assumed that what is enunciated by the Supreme Court is, in fact, the law from inception.However, there is also a doctrine of prospective overruling which is more common in American jurisprudence. This doctrine was applied in India as an exception to the normal principle of law, for the first time, in the famous case of L.C. Golak Nath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643, which was decided by a bench of 11 judges (a rare phenomenon). Prospective overruling is a device innovated to avoid reopening of settled issues, to prevent multiplicity of proceedings, and to avoid uncertainty and avoidable litigation. This means that actions taken contrary to the law declared prior to the date of declaration are validated in larger public interest. It may not be in public interest, sometimes, to reopen very old settled cases. It may give rise to chaos.However, it is for the Supreme Court to indicate in its decision itself as to whether the decision in question will operate prospectively. Thus, there shall be no prospective overruling, unless it is so indicated in the particular decision.But, there have been a few exceptions to this principle. For example, in the case of Saurabh Chaudri (Dr.) v. Union of India, (2004) 5 SCC 618 : AIR 2004 SC 2212, which was decided by a 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, a majority of 4 judges held a previous judgment of the Supreme Court (in the case of Saurabh Chaudri) to be made applicable only prospectively and thus exclude from the operation thereof the process of admission which had already commenced and was nearing finalisation when the judgment came to be pronounced. This was done in spite of the fact that in the said judgment of Saurabh Chaudri itself, there was no declaration of the same being a prospective operation.I don’t want to multiply such judgments, though there are many. The accepted view thus is generally that a judgment is supposed to be retrospective where it declares a law, unless it is specifically mentioned to be having prospective application only.In the present judgment relating to Section 377 IPC, I did not find any specific mention of the judgment having only prospective operation (I have read the main parts so far, and also conducted search for keywords). Therefore, it is supposed to have retrospective operation, i.e., it should apply also to the pending cases or proceedings.However, my own considered opinion is that the judgment would apply to the previous cases where proceedings are still pending, such as during investigation, trial or appeal stage. Where a particular past case has already attained finality (with all proceedings, including all possible appeals, coming to an end) and a person already having completed imprisonment, this judgment may not apply.Now, suppose there is someone who has already lost all appeals and is still in jail for an offence under Section 377 IPC (should be “with consent” case, for which only, this judgment applies), he may perhaps apply for his release from jail, since his remaining jail term may become untenable in accordance with this judgment. This is what is my understanding.In the end, at the cost of repetition, let me mention again that where any forcible and/or “without consent” act was committed amounting to Section 377 offence, the benefit of the present Supreme Court judgment would not be available, irrespective of whether it is a past case or a future case.Update (7 September 2018): I have mentioned the figure of less than 200 persons having been prosecuted in 150 years in India for the offence under Section 377 IPC. As I mentioned in the answer, this was mentioned by Justice Rohinton Nariman in para 95 of his decision in the present case.It may also be noted that in para 71 of the decision of Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Khanwilkar also, exactly the same figures are mentioned.In fact, exactly same figures are mentioned also in para 66 of the previous judgment of the Supreme Court on the same issue (in which the Supreme Court had refused to strike down Section 377 IPC), namely, in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation, (2014) 1 SCC 1 : 2014 Cri LJ 784 : AIR 2014 SC 563.After one reader pointed out that there may be some error in this data, I checked in Crime in India - 2016, published by NCRB, and found that the figures quoted above by the Supreme Court in both these judgments are not correct, and in fact a much larger number of cases have been registered for this offence. So, I felt it necessary to place this fact on record. Whatever other things are mentioned in my answer remain unchanged. My apologies for accepting the figures mentioned in the Supreme Court judgments as gospel truth.