When Love Turns into Litigation: Delhi High Court Paves the Way for Alienation of Affection Suits in India
The Delhi High Court in Shelly Mahajan v. Ms Bhanushree Bahl & Anr.1 permitted a suit in tort for damages on the ground of alienation of affection to go ahead, marking a watershed moment in matrimonial jurisprudence. Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav has provided a new window of opportunity for aggrieved spouses to recover from third parties who are said to be interfering in their marriages. This order, handed down on 15 September 2025 is the first to allow such a claim to move beyond the threshold stage, while the tort remains unrecognised in codified Indian law.
Understanding Alienation of Affection: The Legal Framework and Its Application
Alienation of affection is a tort, a civil wrong compensable in money for which relief can be sought, that emanates from Anglo-American common law. Although not statutorily codified in any Indian law, it has been theoretically accepted by Indian courts. The tort fits into the family of ‘heart-balm’ actions, which enable a person to recover for emotional harms resulting from broken marital relationships2 . The tort is based on the fundamental assumption that spouses share a legally protected interest in their spouse’s consortium, a term that includes companionship, affection, intimacy, emotional support, and the shared life of marriage. When a third person intentionally disrupts this relationship through deliberate actions aimed at provoking one spouse to leave the other, resulting in a loss of affection and companionship, the affected spouse may seek civil damages.
To prevail on an alienation of affection claim, three conditions must be proven: First, there should have been real love and affection between the spouses before the alleged interference. A marriage that lacks affection from the beginning cannot sustain such an allegation. Second, the affection must have been lost, withheld or destroyed. The plaintiff must demonstrate the actual loss of the emotional and companionate aspects of the marital relationship to prove their claim. Third, and most importantly, the defendant’s actions must be the proximate cause of the alienation. This entails evidence of intentional, wrongful behaviour actively aimed at separating one spouse from the other. Passive or mere association is insufficient. If a married individual develops feelings for another person independently, without any calculated provocation, no liability falls upon the third party is not liable. The tort aims at malicious interference, not natural human emotions or personal preferences.
This stringent evidentiary threshold reflects the balancing of two competing interests.
i. preservation of marriage as a social institution; and
ii. regard for individual autonomy.
A spouse’s free decision to abandon a marriage, without external manipulation, overcomes a claim against a third party. As Indian courts have always asserted, tort law has no desire to command human emotions or limit personal liberty but only to offer compensation when a third party consciously and wrongly ruins a marital relationship by deliberate interference.
Indian courts initially dealt with the doctrine of alienation in Pinakin Mahipatray Rawal v. State of Gujarat3 , where the Supreme Court recognized that alienation of affection by a stranger, if established, is an intentional tort of interference with the matrimonial relationship with intent to alienate one from the other spouse. The Court acknowledged that both spouses have worthy interests in their matrimonial relationship, including intimacy, companionship, support, duties, affection, and children’s welfare. Critically, though, the Court did observe that such actions are still ‘nascent’ in India and stressed the rigorous standards of evidence which would be applicable; mere association with a spouse would be too little, and clear proof of active and wrongful interference with acts intentional and calculated to provoke one spouse away from the other would be necessary. The crucial limitation in Indian jurisprudence thus far has been that all observations on alienation of affection have emerged in contexts involving domestic violence, adultery, or criminal proceedings, not in civil suits specifically seeking damages for the tort itself. Various High Courts, including the Uttarakhand High Court, in Devendra Kumar v. Manita4 , have cited these principles but always within ancillary contexts. No Indian court had, so far, in fact allowed a standalone civil suit for alienation of affection damages to reach the trial stage.
Personal Choice and Civil Consequences: The Joseph Shine Question in a Hohfeldian Approach to Third-Party Liability
In Shelly Mahajan, the plaintiff married Defendant No. 2 in March 2012, and they had twin children in 2018. The plaintiff complained that Defendant No. 1, who had joined her husband’s business venture as an analyst in 2021, systematically disrupted their marriage despite being aware of its existence. The alleged interference took the form of visiting the marital home, being the husband’s sole travel companion on business trips, sharing intimate conversations (overheard by the plaintiff in March 2023), and preserving a relationship attested to by letters. When challenged, Defendant No. 1 is said to have declined to end the relationship, after which the husband appeared with her at social events and embarrassed the plaintiff in public before seeking a divorce in April 2025.
The plaintiff’s action stood out from typical marital discord by claiming that Defendant No. 1’s actions were intentional, knowing, and aimed particularly at interfering with the husband’s affections, and that the marital deterioration arose from Defendant No. 1’s active involvement rather than the husband’s free will. She sued only Defendant No. 1 for tortious interference, not for matrimonial relief against her husband. This conceptualisation became central to the jurisdictional enquiry because it located the claim as arising not out of the matrimonial relationship per se but out of an autonomous tort perpetrated by a third party against the plaintiff’s legally protected interests, thus allowing the court to exercise jurisdiction.
Most importantly, although the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, offers remedies for adultery, maintenance, custody, and other matrimonial reliefs, no matrimonial law offers a remedy against third parties who interfere in marriages. This legislative gap was crucial in Justice Kaurav’s reasoning. In the absence of statutory provisions in matrimonial law for such relief and statutory prohibition on the institution of such claims, civil courts continue to have inherent jurisdiction to determine tort claims, including new or uncodified ones such as alienation of affection. The plaintiff’s invocation of the tort, therefore, challenged Indian courts to bring into reality a cause of action present only in Supreme Court dicta, converting theoretical recognition into a real remedy and unlocking a new window of opportunity for claims of marital harm outside the bounds of family court adjudication.
The defendants objected to the suit’s maintainability on the grounds that, according to Section 7 of the Family Courts Act read with Section 9 CPC, it was within the sole jurisdiction of Family Courts. Drawing support from Geeta Anand v. Tanya Arjun5 and Leby Issac v. Leena M. Ninan6, they argued that marital relationship disputes have to be relegated to Family Courts. Justice Kaurav made these precedents distinct by applying the ‘cause of action test’ and ruled that the Family Court’s jurisdiction extends only where the cause of action has a fundamental nexus with the marital relationship. As the plaintiff’s claim for alienation of affection involved independent tortious interference by a third party, it fell within the jurisdiction of civil courts. The Court also dismissed Leby Issac for the Family Court jurisdiction being extended beyond its rightful boundaries, reasserting that the exclusion of civil courts must be express or fairly implied.
The defendants also relied on Joseph Shine v Union of India7, contending that autonomy protects such relationships from the law. Justice Kaurav explained that while Joseph Shine decriminalised adultery, it did not immunise parties against civil liability. Marriage creates an expectation of monopoly, as recognised in Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act. Tort law recognises compensation when third parties intentionally disrupt this union. Applying Hohfeld’s system, the Court determined that rights in a consortium between spouses entail corresponding obligations on third parties not to alienate affection. A legal interest that imposes a correlative duty and liability will only attach if wrongful intent, causation, and quantifiable harm are proven, preserving personal liberty while compensating for true intrusion.
In a critical sense, the Court acknowledged that a spouse enjoys inherent freedom to exercise
personal decisions, and where the conduct is utterly voluntary and uncoerced, such exercise
of freedom precludes third-party liability. A civil action for wrongful interference is
analytically viable only if the plaintiff can prove the following:
(i) Wrongful and intentional behaviour by the defendant aimed at alienating the marital
relationship
(ii) determinate causation between that behaviour and legally recognisable injury; and
(iii) that the alleged loss is amenable to a rational measurement. These demands ensure
that the tort does not impermissibly violate autonomy while providing a remedy for wrongful
interference.
Looking Ahead: Implications and Open Issues
By allowing the suit to go ahead, Justice Kaurav did not provide relief or decide the case on merits. The comments were clearly restricted to adjudicating maintainability at the stage of summons without formulating any opinions on the merits. Defendants have been to raise Order VII Rule 11 CPC for rejection of the plaint at the due stages. Whether the plaintiff will eventually be able to prove the stringent requirements of evidence being active interference, intentional wrongful act, causation, and measurable damages is a matter of trial now.
However, this order marks an important shift in doctrine. It holds that alienation of affection claims is not per se non-justiciable in India, that civil courts have the jurisdiction to try them, and that such claims endure as a matter of principle in the Hohfeldian scheme of rights and obligations. The choice prudently weighs against each other, contending considerations such as safeguarding marital relationships as institutions of social significance, acknowledgement of personal autonomy and freedom, separating criminal from civil sanctions, and the appropriate division of jurisdiction between family and civil courts.
The order also raises significant questions for future cases. How will courts measure damages for the loss of companionship and consortium? What standards of proof will courts use to establish intentional interference versus the independent choice of spouses? Will the tort be expanded to non-marital relationships? Most importantly, will this new development trigger legislative action, either to codify the tort with explicit boundaries or to eliminate it through heart-balm legislation, as many American states and other common law countries have already done? Currently, Shelly Mahajan is the leading Indian judgment to recognise that the doors of civil courts are open for spouses claiming damages for purported alienation of affection. Whether this is the harbinger of a new era in Indian matrimonial law or an isolated development will depend on the manner in which trial and appellate courts traverse the challenging landscape that this judgment has created.
