The Supreme Court has stayed the Delhi High Court order granting divorce to celebrity chef Kunal Kapur following a plea by his estranged wife challenging the divorce decree and referred the matter for mediation by the Supreme Court Mediation Centre to explore the possibility of any out-of-court settlement.

Staying the Delhi High Court order, a bench comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhati on Monday (July 29) issued notice to master chef Kunal Kapur seeking his response to his estranged wife’s plea against the High Court decree.

In April, the Delhi High Court granted divorce to Kapur on the grounds of alleged cruelty by his wife. The High Court had reversed the earlier family court decision refusing to grant a divorce to Kapur – a judge on the television show “Master Chef”.

Kapur had approached the High Court challenging the family court order denying him a divorce.

The family court had ruled that making reckless, slanderous, humiliating, and baseless charges against a spouse in public constitutes cruelty.

The estranged couple married in April 2008 and their son was born in 2012.

In his plea, Kunal Kapur accused his wife of disrespecting his parents and humiliating him.

However, his wife accused him of making false claims in order to mislead the court and claimed that she always sought to interact with her husband as a loving spouse and was faithful to him.

Filing the appeal against the High Court verdict, his wife said, “High Court of Delhi failed to consider that the tragic saga, endured by the petitioner wife, is a harrowing tale of unwarranted accusations, distorted perceptions, and a miscarriage of justice.”

The appeal, filed through advocate Ranjeeta Rohatgi, sought setting aside of the High Court verdict, saying, “The High Court has committed grave errors in granting the divorce and there are apparent errors in interpreting the law with the help of relevant legal principles. The impugned judgment has caused a grave miscarriage of justice to the petitioner (wife) and therefore it ought to be set aside.”

In its judgment, the High Court said that while discord is an inevitable part of every marriage, when such conflicts take the form of disrespect and inconsideration towards a spouse, the marriage loses its sanctity.

The judgment stated, “In the light of the facts of the case, we find that the conduct of the respondent (wife) towards the appellant (husband Kunal Kapur) 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.”