Amid the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, the state’s former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his estranged wife Payal Abdullah have been asked by the Supreme Court to appear before it. In fact, the apex court on Friday directed Omar Abdullah and Payal Abdullah to go for mediation at the Supreme Court Mediation Center.
According to a Live Law report, while filing a divorce petition, Omar had argued that his marriage with Payal had completely broken down. Omar Abdullah and Payal Abdullah were married on 01 September 1994. They have been living separately since the year 2009. They have two sons. Omar had also approached the Family High Court on the grounds of ‘cruelty’. However, the court rejected his petition for divorce on August 30, 2016. According to the court, Omar could not prove what kind of rift had come in their marriage which could not be compensated.
Omar challenged this in the Delhi High Court. In December 2023, a division bench of Justices Sanjeev Sachdeva and Vikas Mahajan upheld the order of the family court. The Delhi High Court on December 12, 2023 dismissed Omar Abdullah’s divorce petition, saying that his appeal had no merit. The High Court had upheld the 2016 family court order, which refused to grant a divorce on the petition of Abdullah, the former Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Now the Supreme Court has said that it will consider the petition of Omar Abdullah seeking divorce from his wife Payal Abdullah. A bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah directed that both the parties should jointly appear for mediation at the Supreme Court Mediation Center so that a settlement can be reached between the two parties. Last time, the court had issued notice on Omar Abdullah’s petition and sought a response from Payal Abdullah.
Initially, senior advocate Kapil Sibal (appearing for Omar Abdullah) had said that the two parties have been living separately for 15 years. To this, senior advocate Shyam Divan (appearing for Payal Abdullah) told the court that mediation should be tried at least once. Sibal intervened and said that they can resort to mediation, but it is for solution, not reconciliation.
National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah will try his luck from Ganderbal assembly constituency in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. This is a U-turn for the former chief minister, who had vowed not to contest from the Union Territory’s assembly seat. The NC released a list of 32 party candidates, including Omar Abdullah’s name for the Ganderbal assembly seat. Abdullah represented this constituency in the assembly from 2009 to 2014. He was then the chief minister of the NC-Congress coalition government.
