A three-judge Bench comprising justice S C Agrawal, Justice S Saghir Ahmad and Justice M Srinivasan referred Rupa Hurra's petition challenging the grant of divorce decree to her husband Ashok Hurra against her consent to a larger Bench.

Earlier, a Division Bench comprising Justice M M Punchhi, now Chief Justice of India, and Justice K S Paripoornan while granting divorce decree to Ashok had also dropped the bigamy charges against him levelled by Rupa.

Rupa and Ashok married in 1970 and applied for divorce under mutual consent clause in 1984. While the matter was pending in court, Ashok clandestinely married Sonia without the knowledge of Rupa, who in 1986 withdrew her consent for the divorce.

The trial court dismissed Ashok's petition for grant of divorce decree, which was upheld by a single judgeof the Gujarat High Court. However, on appeal, a Division Bench of the high court granted Ashok the decree.

On March 10 last year, Justice Puncchi and Justice Paripoornan held that though Ashok's conduct of marrying Sonia during the pendency of divorce proceedings relating to Rupa was condemnable, the whole issue should not be blown out of proportion and not viewed in isolation.

While granting the divorce decree, the bench had asked Ashok to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh to Rupa. Later, it had also dismissed Rupa's petition seeking review of the earlier order.

Although the then Chief Justice J S Verma had dismissed a petition by Committee on Judicial Accountability alleging that Justice Puncchi had granted the decree on extraneous considerations, he had allowed Rupa's writ petition for hearing.

Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Shanti Bhusan contended that the judgement of the two-judge Bench defeated the civil law which allows a party in a divorce proceedings to withdraw his/her consentat a later stage.