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Man, 89, Refused Divorce By India's Top Court After 27-year Case
India's top court has denied an octogenarian man the right to divorce his wife of six decades, 27 years after he first applied to dissolve their marriage.
Divorce remains taboo across much of India with only one in every 100 marriages ending in dissolution, often owing to family and social pressure to sustain unhappy marriages.
Those seeking divorce must get approval from the courts, which typically only grant it if proof of cruelty, violence or undue financial demands is presented.
Nirmal Singh Panesar, 89, married in 1963 but said in filings with India's notoriously glacial criminal justice system that his relationship had broken down irretrievably in 1984.
That year his wife Paramjit Kaur Panesar, now 82, had refused to move with him to the southern city of Chennai when the Indian Air Force posted him there.
Nirmal first filed for divorce in 1996 on the grounds of cruelty and desertion, granted by a district court in 2000 but overturned later that year after an appeal by Paramjit.
His case took another two decades to make its way before the Supreme Court, which denied the divorce petition despite agreeing their marriage was "beyond salvation".
"The institution of marriage is still considered to be a pious, spiritual, and invaluable emotional life-net between the husband and the wife in Indian society," said the court's judgement, which was published Thursday.
The judgement said that granting the dissolution would be an "injustice" to Paramjit, who had told the court she did not want to die with the "stigma" of being a divorcee.
She also said she had made all efforts to respect their "sacred relationship" and was still ready to look after her husband in his old age.
The couple have three children together.
Chronic backlogs in India's criminal justice system mean some cases take decades to reach a resolution.
Around 43.2 million cases were pending before courts across the country, the government said last year.
注释：
octogenarian: N
表示"八旬老人(八十到八十九岁间)"，means "someone whose age is in the eighties"，如：She is very active for an octogenarian. 她已经是八旬老人了，还很精神。
dissolve: V
表示"解散；消除"，means "bring to an end"，如：As president, he can dissolve parliament on a whim.作为总统，他可以随意解散议会。
glacial: adj
表示" 冰川(期)的；非常冷的；缓慢的"，means "very slowly;extremely cold"，如：Work proceeded at a glacial pace.工作以极缓慢的速度进行着。It was a door even more glacial than that of winter which was ajar.比起平时冬季的那扇半开的门,这扇门更冻人。
irretrievably: adv
表示"不可挽回地；无法弥补地；不能恢复地"，means "in an irretrievable manner"，如：All tag associations and metadata for the document will be permanently lost, and the file it refers to will be irretrievably deleted. 所有与该文档关联的标签和元数据将永久丢失，而且与之关联的文件将被不可挽回地删除。
petition: n
表示" 请愿书；祈求；申请"，means "make a petition or request to"，如：They signed a petition in support of the workers' demands. 他们在请愿书上签名，支持工人的请求。She filed a petition for divorce. 她提出了离婚申请。
pious: adj
表示" 虔诚的；伪善的；"，means "having or showing or expressing reverence for a deity"，如：He is a pious person to his belief. 他是一个对其信仰虔诚的人。
backlog: v; n
表示" 积压"，means "accumulate and create a backlog; an accumulation of jobs not done or materials not processed that are yet to be dealt with (especially unfilled customer orders for products or services)"，如：Orders are starting to backlog faster than we can process them. 订单开始形成积压,我们来不及处理。My secretary can not cope with the backlog of paperwork. 我的秘书无力处理积压下来的文书作业。
中文简要说明：
印度一名老翁27年前向法院诉请与妻子离婚，等了4年获得地方法院批准，女方上诉之后遭到推翻。今年10月终于获得印度最高法院审理，尽管法院认为两人婚姻已「无法挽救」，仍驳回老翁的离婚申请案件。老翁为离婚努力了27年仍以失败告终。
综合法新社、印度「寰宇一家」（WION）电视台、美国奇闻网站「奇人异事中心」（Oddity Central）报导，印度最高法院本月10日驳回89岁男子巴尼萨（Nirmal Singh Panesar）诉请与82岁妻子离婚的案件。他与妻子帕拉姆姬（Paramjit Kaur Panesar）貌合神离已近40年。
巴尼萨于1963年与帕拉姆姬结婚，迄今已60年。巴尼萨曾是印度空军军官，也是合格医师，帕拉姆姬原本是教师，两人育有3名子女。1984年印度空军把巴尼萨派往南部大城清奈（Chennai），妻子帕拉姆姬说什么也不愿意一同迁居，双方感情就此破裂。帕拉姆起先与娘家父母同住，后来与儿子同住。
巴尼萨1990年退役，1996年他首度以虐待、遗弃为由向地方法院诉请离婚，地方法院2000年批准，同年帕拉姆姬上诉自称履行义务努力维持婚姻，判决遭到推翻。又过了23年，巴尼萨的离婚案终于在今年10月初送进最高法院，然而他未能如愿离婚。
印度最高法院12日发布判决书指出：「印度社会仍视婚姻制度为虔诚的、精神面的、无价的感情生命网。」帕拉姆姬向庭上表示，她不想带着失婚妇女的「耻辱」死去，她已尽其所能尊重与丈夫之间的「神圣关系」，她也做好照顾丈夫晚年的准备。法院指出，离婚身分在现代社会可能已非耻辱，「但本案法院关注的是被告个人感受」，法院若行使裁量权判原告胜诉以解除双方婚姻关系，对于双方未尽公正，尤其对被告不公正，即使两人婚姻破裂已无可挽回，法院倾向于不接受原告提出离婚的诉请。
巴尼萨想离婚可谓难如登天。印度大多数地区视离婚为禁忌，每100桩婚姻仅有1件以离婚收场。离婚必须获得法院批准，通常只在具备证据显示婚姻之中有残忍行径、暴力或承受过度经济重担的状况，离婚方可成立。
此外，印度刑事司法系统也以长期积压案件出名，部分案件可能拖了好几十年方可解决。印度政府去年表示，全国法院等待审理的案件多达4320万件。
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