Chef Kunal Kapur faces setback as Supreme Court stays Delhi HC’s order granting divorce, case referred for mediation

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 30, ordered a stay on a Delhi high court verdict granting divorce to popular chef Kunal Kapur on the grounds of cruelty meted out to him by his estranged wife.

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

In an appeal at the Delhi High Court, Kapur had challenged a family court order denying him a divorce.

The high court had said that 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,” the high court had said. “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.”

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti has issued a notice to Kunal Kapur on a plea filed by his wife and referred the case to the Mediation Centre for exploring the possibility of settlement.

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

The former “MasterChef India” judge had accused his wife of never respecting his parents and humiliating him.

On the other hand, the wife had accused Kapur of making false allegations to mislead the court and said that 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 a divorce, she had alleged.