Uttarakhand High Court: a UCC divorce order won by fraud can be undone by the court that passed it

31 October 2026

The Uttarakhand High Court has held that a woman who says her divorce by mutual consent was obtained by fraud must raise that plea before the family court that granted it. A division bench of Justices Ravindra Maithani and Siddhartha Sah observed that every court has the power to undo its own order when fraud has tainted it. The family court at Vikasnagar in Dehradun district had dissolved the marriage on Aug 31 on a joint application under section 27 of the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code, 2024. The wife told the High Court that the joint petition was never read over to her and that the child custody terms were changed without her informed consent. Her application to the family court to recall the order had not been taken on record. Disposing of her appeal on 31 October, the bench left her free to take the fraud plea to that court and said it expected the court to decide it according to law.