Getting passport updated after foreign divorce just got easier. Here’s why

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav allowed the plea.

Plea before Delhi High Court

• The case arose after the petitioner and his former wife, who were married in 2017 and later moved to Canada, obtained a divorce by mutual consent from the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2024.
• The couple had separated in 2022 and entered into a separation agreement before jointly seeking dissolution of their marriage in Canada.
• Following the divorce, the petitioner remarried in Canada and sought to update his passport records.
• However, the authorities declined to recognise the Canadian divorce decree and refused to make the requested changes, relying on provisions of the passport manual that require parties to obtain a declaratory order from an Indian court confirming the validity of a foreign divorce judgment.
• Thereafter, the petitioner instituted a civil suit under Section 7 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, read with Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, seeking a declaration of the divorce decree passed by the foreign court as valid and binding in India.
• The said suit, however, came to be dismissed by the Delhi family court on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction.

Court allows plea

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the insistence of passport authorities requiring the parties to obtain a declaratory decree from an Indian Court, even in cases where the foreign divorce has been granted by mutual consent, is contrary to the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

It was further argued that the said insistence is also contrary to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, 1961.

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the foreign divorce decree passed by the foreign court is conclusive and binding within the meaning of Section 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, particularly since both parties were residing in Canada at the relevant time and the decree was passed with consent and participation of both sides.

The court noted that the conjoint effect of Sections 13 and 14 CPC is that a foreign judgment ordinarily carries a presumption of conclusiveness and validity unless the party assailing the same can establish that the case falls within any of the exceptions contemplated under Section 13 CPC.

It observed that the decree was passed with the participation and consent of both parties and was not an ex parte determination.

The court also emphasised that the ex-wife of the petitioner neither disputed the validity and binding nature of the aforesaid foreign divorce decree nor questioned the dissolution of marriage recorded thereunder.

The court ruled that once the foreign divorce decree is independently found to satisfy the requirements of Section 13 of the CPC, the respondent authorities could not have insisted upon a separate declaratory decree from an Indian court without showing any legal infirmity in the said decree.

Allowing the plea, the court directed authorities to consider petitioner’s request for passport updation without insisting upon a separate declaratory decree from an Indian Court.