Divorce lawyer in Hyderabad: process, cost and courts
Where your matter is heard, what it costs and how long it takes changes from one city to the next. This page is about Hyderabad: the court that will hear you, the money, the realistic timeline, and what to bring on the first day.
If you would rather talk it through, a guided session is fifty minutes online with an advocate, with your petition, affidavit and settlement drafted afterwards for this court.
Which court hears your case
The Hyderabad Integrated Family Courts, at Nampally.
Three family courts sit there — the Principal Family Court and the I and II Additional Family Courts — alongside two Metropolitan Magistrates' courts, in the extended premises of the Metropolitan Sessions Courts complex.
Jurisdiction follows one of three things: where the marriage was solemnised, where you last lived together as a couple, or where the respondent lives now. Where more than one applies there is a choice to make, and it is a real choice: the court you file in decides everything about how the matter is handled, and it is worth choosing deliberately rather than by habit.
Which law applies
Most matters in Hyderabad run under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — mutual consent under section 13B, two motions six months apart. A marriage registered civilly runs under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, on the same pattern under section 28. Muslim, Christian and Parsi marriages each have their own law and their own waiting periods. The personal law that applies to you decides the Act; this page decides the court.
Mutual consent: the two motions
First motion. The joint petition is filed with the settlement. Both of you attend, the court satisfies itself the petition is genuine and that nobody is under pressure, and your statements are recorded. The hearing itself is short.
The wait. Section 13B(2) sets at least six months before the second motion.
Second motion. Not before six months and not after eighteen — miss the outer limit and the petition lapses. Both attend again, consent is confirmed, statements are recorded, and the decree follows.
Can the six months be waived?
Yes, in the right case. In Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur (2017) the Supreme Court held that the period under 13B(2) is directory, not mandatory — a court may waive it where the parties have genuinely lived apart well beyond the statutory period, every issue between them is settled, and the wait would only prolong their suffering.
It is discretionary, and a refused application costs weeks.
The Supreme Court settled the argument again in Misha Somani v. Rituraj Somani (2 February 2026). A High Court had refused a waiver by treating the four Amardeep Singh conditions as a checklist that must all be met. The Supreme Court set that aside, holding the High Court had misconstrued Amardeep Singh — the factors are illustrative, not exhaustive — and repeating what it had said in Amit Kumar v. Suman Beniwal (2023) 17 SCC 648: where there is no possibility of reconciliation, it is meaningless to prolong the agony of the parties.
So the direction of travel is clear, and it is towards waiver where the settlement is complete. It is still discretionary, and a refused application still costs weeks.
What it costs in Hyderabad
| Our fee, mutual consent, both motions | From ₹30,000, fixed and agreed before we start |
| Guided session only | ₹3,999 |
| Papers only, self-serve | ₹99 |
| Contested matters | Priced on the issues |
What pushes a mutual consent matter to the upper end is almost always an unfinished settlement, property in more than one name, or a party who cannot attend in person.
How long it takes here
What the statute sets. A year living apart before a section 13B petition can be filed at all, six months between the two motions, and an outer limit of eighteen months after which the petition lapses.
Two of those three can be waived, and that is recent. The six months under 13B(2) has been waivable since Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur (2017). The year under 13B(1) was long treated as immovable — until 17 December 2025, when a Full Bench of the Delhi High Court held it is directory rather than mandatory and can also be waived, on exceptional hardship to the petitioner or exceptional depravity on the part of the respondent. The Court was clear it is not granted for the asking, and that the two waivers are considered independently of one another. It is a Delhi judgment, so its force outside Delhi is persuasive rather than binding, and it is new enough that practice is still settling. The eighteen-month outer limit is untouched.
The part that is not. Everything else is listing time — how long until the first motion is heard, and how long the second takes to come up once the wait is over. It moves with the judge, with vacancies and transfers, and with the load this complex is carrying that season.
We do not publish a range for it, because nobody can. No court in India publishes its listing intervals. The National Judicial Data Grid carries every district court and updates daily, but its public view does not separate family courts from the rest, or matrimonial matters from other civil cases — and the one recent study to measure disposal time by state left family matters out altogether. A number quoted to you without a source is a guess wearing a suit. How long a divorce actually takes in India sets out what the published data does and does not show.
What you can find out exactly. Once your petition is filed it carries a sixteen-digit CNR number, and from then on your next date is a matter of record rather than estimation. Case status, orders and the daily cause list for your court are public at services.ecourts.gov.in, searchable by CNR, by case number or by party name, and the eCourts Services app carries the same. Ask your advocate for the CNR at filing. It is the single most useful thing you can hold.
Contested is a different question entirely: years rather than months, and the honest answer depends on the grounds and how much of the evidence is disputed.
What to bring to the first meeting
- Marriage certificate, or the invitation and photographs if the marriage was never registered
- Address proof for both parties
- Proof of the date you began living separately
- Income documents for both: salary slips, returns, bank statements
- Details of assets in either name: the flat, the loan, jewellery, accounts, investments
- Details of any children: ages, school, who they live with now
- Any proceedings already running between you
- Whatever you have already agreed between yourselves, however informally
Bring what you have. None of it is a precondition to a first conversation.
Local specifics
Appearing from abroad. In Santhini v. Vijaya Venketesh (2018) the Supreme Court held, by majority, that video conferencing should not ordinarily be resorted to in matrimonial proceedings, overruling its earlier view in Krishna Veni Nagam. Practice moved during the pandemic: the Supreme Court's e-Committee issued Model Rules for Video Conferencing for Courts (2020), and video conferencing in any court follows the rules of its parent High Court — here, the High Court for the State of Telangana. What remains discretionary is whether a particular bench allows it in a mutual consent matter, and what it accepts in place of personal appearance — usually a power of attorney executed abroad and consularised or apostilled.
Language. Telugu, Urdu, Hindi and English are all used; interpretation is available.
Mediation is not optional, and that is statutory. Section 9 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 puts a duty on the court to attempt a settlement in every proceeding, and in K. Srinivas Rao v. D.A. Deepa (2013) the Supreme Court directed courts to refer matrimonial disputes to mediation at the earliest opportunity. So a matter that arrives with an unfinished settlement will be sent to the attached mediation centre — that is the court doing its job, not a setback. It does add weeks nobody budgeted for, which is the argument for finishing the settlement before filing rather than after.
Common questions
Do both of us need our own lawyer? Not for a mutual consent divorce. One set of papers is filed jointly. Where the settlement is contentious, separate advice is sensible.
Do we both have to appear? Yes, at both motions, in person or by video where the court permits it.
Can we file if the marriage was never registered? Yes. Registration is proof of marriage, not a condition of divorce.
We have been separated for four years. Do we still wait six months? That is exactly the fact pattern in which waiver is argued. It is not guaranteed.
What happens to the flat? Whatever the two of you agree, recorded properly in the settlement. A court will not divide it for you in a mutual consent matter.
Talk to a lawyer
Book a guided session — ₹3,999. Fifty minutes online, your questions answered, your papers drafted for your Hyderabad court afterwards.