Mutual divorce petition format: what a section 13B petition actually contains
A mutual consent divorce begins with one petition, filed jointly, not two. Both of you are petitioners. There is no respondent and nobody is accused of anything, which is the practical difference between this and every other kind of divorce.
Which court
Get this wrong and the petition comes back, and you lose the listing date.
Jurisdiction under the Hindu Marriage Act follows one of these, and where more than one applies there is a genuine choice to make:
- Where the marriage was solemnised
- Where you last resided together as husband and wife
- Where the respondent resides — in a joint petition, either of you
- Where the petitioner resides, in defined circumstances
In a city with several family court complexes, the complex follows the district, and listing speed is not the same everywhere. It is worth deciding deliberately rather than filing at the nearest one. Your city page sets out which court hears what.
What the petition states
The substance is short. Section 13B(1) asks the court to be satisfied of three things, and the petition says each of them:
- That you have lived separately for a year or more.
- That you have not been able to live together.
- That you have mutually agreed that the marriage should be dissolved.
Around that, the petition sets out the facts a court needs in order to act: when and where the marriage took place and under which law, your addresses then and now, whether there are children and their ages, what you have settled between you, and whether anything is pending between you anywhere.
The settlement is annexed. Everything the two of you have agreed goes in that document, not in the body of the petition. See the settlement agreement.
The format, paragraph by paragraph
There is no prescribed form. No statute sets out a template and no court issues one, which is why searching for "the format" returns a dozen different-looking documents that are all perfectly valid. What is fixed is the order of the content, because that order is the order a judge reads in, and a petition that wanders is a petition that gets questions.
This is the structure, and what each paragraph is actually doing.
| ¶ | What it states | What it is doing |
|---|---|---|
| Cause title | The court, the petition number, both petitioners | Establishes who is asking and of whom |
| 1 | Date, place and rites of the marriage | Proves a marriage exists to dissolve |
| 2 | Registration details, certificate annexed | Proof of ¶1. Not fatal if the marriage was never registered |
| 3 | Where you last resided together | One of the three facts that decide jurisdiction |
| 4 | That both are Hindus | Brings you within the Hindu Marriage Act. Deleted under the Special Marriage Act |
| 5 | Children, ages, who they live with | The court will ask. Say "no child" if there is none — do not omit it |
| 6 | That you could not live together, and the date you separated | The statutory ground. The most misused paragraph in the document |
| 7 | Reconciliation has failed | Satisfies the court there is nothing left to save |
| 8 | Mutual and voluntary agreement to dissolve | The consent itself |
| 9 | Everything settled, settlement annexed | The paragraph the whole matter turns on |
| 10 | No collusion | Statutory language. Reads oddly; means collusion to mislead the court, not agreement to part |
| 11 | What else is pending between you | Concealing something here is the fastest way to lose the court's confidence |
| 12 | Why this court has jurisdiction | State the one ground that is true, not all three |
| 13 | Court fee paid | Housekeeping |
| Prayer | Dissolve the marriage; record the settlement in the decree | Ask for both. See below |
| Verification | Signed by both, on what is true to knowledge | Makes the petition sworn |
Paragraph 6 is where people ruin it
It is a mutual consent petition. Paragraph 6 should say that owing to differences you have not been able to live together, and give the date you separated. That is all.
What people do instead is put the marriage's history into it — cruelty, in-laws, an affair, money. Every one of those belongs in a contested petition, and putting them in a joint one invites the court to wonder whether the consent is really free. You are asking a judge to dissolve a marriage without anybody proving anything against anybody. Give them no reason to look twice.
The only fact in that paragraph that matters is the date, and you will be asked to prove it. See documents required.
Ask for the settlement to be recorded in the decree
The prayer should ask for two things: the decree of divorce, and that the settlement be recorded as part of it.
That second one is not a formality. A settlement recorded in the decree is enforceable as part of the decree. A settlement merely filed alongside is a contract, and enforcing a contract means a fresh suit. Same document, same day, entirely different position two years later if somebody stops paying.
"In Word" or "as a PDF" — what you actually need
A fair number of people searching for the format want a file. Worth knowing which:
A PDF is the wrong artifact. The document exists to be filled in, renamed, corrected after somebody reads it, and printed in the number of copies your court wants. A PDF of a form is a picture of work you still have to do.
Nothing has to be typed in any particular software. Courts care about legibility, paper, margins and the number of sets. They do not care what produced the file.
There is no official downloadable form, and any site presenting one as official is wrong. Unlike a passport application, a 13B petition is a pleading drafted for the facts, not a form issued by an authority.
The affidavits
Each of you swears a separate affidavit. It confirms the facts in the petition and — the part that matters — that your consent is free, and not obtained by force, fraud or undue influence. A judge will put the same question to each of you in open court at the first motion, separately, and will be watching the answer.
That is not a formality. It is the whole basis on which a court is permitted to dissolve a marriage without anyone proving anything against anyone.
Which Act you are filing under
Not everyone files under section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act, and filing under the wrong statute is a worse mistake than filing in the wrong court.
| If you married under | Mutual consent is under |
|---|---|
| Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh | Section 13B |
| Special Marriage Act, 1954 — including most interfaith and registered marriages | Section 28 |
| Indian Divorce Act, 1869 — Christian marriages | Section 10A |
| Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 | Section 32B |
| Muslim personal law | Mubarat, which is not a court process in the same way |
The shape is similar across the first four — a joint petition, a period of living apart, a second motion after a wait — but the periods and the wording differ, and so do the courts' expectations.
Who signs, and who has to attend
Both of you sign the petition, both affidavits, and the vakalatnama. Both of you attend at both motions, in person or by video where the court permits it.
One advocate can file for both of you. A mutual consent petition is a joint one and separate representation is not required. Where the settlement is genuinely contentious, separate advice is sensible even though the petition stays joint.
Worth knowing: section 13 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 provides that no party is entitled as of right to be represented by a legal practitioner in a family court, though the court may seek the assistance of a legal expert. In practice advocates appear routinely; the provision exists because the Act was written to keep family proceedings less adversarial than ordinary civil litigation.
What happens after it is filed
The petition is scrutinised at the filing counter, numbered, and listed for the first motion. At that hearing both of you record statements and the court passes an order on the first motion. Then the wait. See what actually happens on the day.
What to do next
A petition drafted properly, filed in the right court, with a settlement that is finished, is a matter that runs on rails. Most of what goes wrong in mutual consent divorces goes wrong in this document.
If you want to type it yourself, everything above is the structure. You now know what each paragraph is for, which one people ruin, and what to ask for in the prayer. That is genuinely enough to write one.
If you would rather not retype it, the papers on their own are ₹99 — the petition, the joint affidavit, the settlement deed, the second motion application, the document checklist and a plain note on the process, as editable drafts with every blank marked and the instructions in brackets for you to read and delete. No advocate is engaged and nothing in it is advice on your case. It saves you an evening, not a decision.
If the settlement is the part you are unsure about — and it usually is, because it is the term that collapses matters later — book a guided session. Fifty minutes online, and your petition, affidavits and settlement drafted afterwards for your own court rather than left blank.