SC stays Delhi HC order granting divorce to chef Kunal Kapur on ground of cruelty

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has stayed a Delhi High Court order granting divorce to celebrity chef Kunal Kapur on the ground of cruelty meted out to him by his estranged wife.

Issuing a notice to Kapur on a plea filed by his wife, a bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti referred the case to the Supreme Court Mediation Centre for exploring the possibility of settlement.

The high court had granted divorce to Kapur, saying the woman's conduct towards him was devoid of dignity and empathy.

It had allowed Kapur's appeal challenging a family court's order denying him divorce and said it is a settled position of law that making reckless, defamatory, humiliating and unsubstantiated allegations against a spouse in public amounts to cruelty.

"In the light of the aforenoted facts of the present case, we find that the conduct of the respondent (wife) towards the appellant (husband) has been such that it is devoid of dignity and empathy towards him.

"When such is the nature of one spouse towards the other, it brings disgrace to the very essence of marriage and there exists no possible reason as to why he should be compelled to live while enduring the agony of living together," the high court had said.

The estranged couple got married in April 2008 and a son was born to them in 2012.

In his plea, Kapur, who was a judge in television show "MasterChef India", had accused his wife of never respecting his parents and humiliating him.

On the other hand, the woman had accused him of making false allegations to mislead the court and said she always tried to communicate with her husband like a loving spouse and was loyal towards him.

However, he kept her in the dark and concocted fabricated stories to obtain divorce, she had alleged.