Five-member juries, usually comprising retired men and women, spend six hours in the Bombay high court for up to 10 days during a single session, granting or refusing divorces to disaffected Parsi couples. They are drawn from a pool of 20 jurors nominated for a decade by the community council.
The presiding judge picks up the five members through a draw of lots, although the lawyers for the plaintiff and the defendant can veto the juror, citing familiarity with the client. In the court room, the jurors, armed with the case papers, sit in a separate enclosure, listen to the proceedings and convey their verdict to the judge.
Unique courts
The jurors – retired bank officers, teachers, doctors, policemen, insurance agents, salesmen – get a daily travel and lunch allowance of 500 rupees ($7.57; £4.93) from the council for attending the court. The Mumbai court usually sits for a few times a year – the last session in July was the third this year and heard 26 cases of divorces over 10 days. There’s a considerable backlog of cases.
“Half of the divorce cases these days are initiated by the women,” says Mr Mogrelia. “They have become more assertive. But one of my memorable cases was when a man said he wanted out of a marriage because of mental cruelty by his wife. He said his wife nagged him too much, and that he couldn’t concentrate on his work. We granted divorce.”
The jurors recount some of the more memorable cases: divorces granted to women because the husband was not taking the family on a vacation, not giving time to his wife, was too obsessive, and in one case, was too religious, praying at some two dozen community temples every day. “I remember the judge explained to the husband that he could pray at home or stick to a single temple. There was no need for excess. The man agreed and we didn’t have to give them a divorce, ” says Jasmine Bastani, a cheerful 65-year-old retired bank officer who has served on the jury for more than a decade.
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