This is one of the biggest gaps between what people expect the law to be and what it is.
The position in the statute
Irretrievable breakdown is not a ground in the Hindu Marriage Act. Section 13 lists cruelty, desertion, adultery and the others; breakdown is not among them. So a family court, a district judge, and even a High Court in an ordinary appeal cannot dissolve a marriage simply because it is plainly finished. The Law Commission has recommended adding it more than once. Parliament has not.
What the Supreme Court can do
In Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023) a Constitution Bench confirmed that the Supreme Court may, in exercise of its power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice, dissolve a marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown, and may do so even without the consent of both parties, and may waive the Section 13B(2) cooling-off period. The Court also set out the factors it will consider: the period of cohabitation, the period of separation, the nature of the allegations, attempts at reconciliation, and whether the parties have already moved on. The decision, and what it does and does not permit, is set out at greater length in the guide on irretrievable breakdown and divorce without consent.
There is a second point about Article 142 that catches people out. It is not a jurisdiction you can invoke by filing a fresh petition in the Supreme Court. It is exercised in a matter that is already before the Court, which in practice means an appeal or a special leave petition against a High Court order, or a transfer petition in which the parties have since arrived at terms. That is why the honest advice to most couples is that the route exists but does not run from where they are standing.
The two statutory grounds that come closest
Parliament did not enact breakdown as a ground, but it did enact two grounds that operate on the same fact, namely that the marriage has stopped functioning, and they are much less used than they should be. Under Section 13(1A) of the Hindu Marriage Act, a party may petition for divorce on the ground that there has been no resumption of cohabitation for one year or more after a decree of judicial separation, or that conjugal rights have not been restored for one year or more after a decree for restitution of conjugal rights under Section 9. Neither requires you to prove cruelty or desertion all over again. What each requires is the earlier decree and the passage of a year, which is a far simpler case to present, and it is the nearest thing an ordinary Family Court has to a breakdown jurisdiction.
The catch is that you must first obtain the earlier decree, and that ordinarily means proving a ground for judicial separation or establishing withdrawal from society without reasonable excuse. So this is a two-stage strategy rather than a shortcut, and it suits a party who can prove something today but does not want the fight that a contested divorce entails.
The remedy exists, but it is at the apex court, which is expensive and slow to reach, and it is discretionary rather than a right. For most people the realistic path is still either a negotiated mutual consent divorce, or a contested petition pleaded on cruelty or desertion, where a long separation and failed reconciliation are treated as strong evidence of those grounds anyway.
Long separation as evidence
Even in the ordinary courts, a very long separation is not irrelevant. Courts have repeatedly held that keeping a dead marriage alive is itself a form of cruelty, and prolonged separation with no attempt at reconciliation is regularly treated as evidence of cruelty or desertion. So the substance often gets in through the recognised grounds, even though the label is not available.
What to plead instead
Plead the recognised ground, and plead the long separation as the evidence of it rather than as the ground itself. The grounds available under Section 13(1), what each of them requires and how they are proved, are set out in the guide on the grounds for a contested divorce in India. Remember also that Section 23 obliges the court to satisfy itself that the ground exists and that the petitioner is not taking advantage of his or her own wrong, so a petition that treats the breakdown as self-proving, without pleading conduct and dates, is asking the judge to do work the pleadings should have done.
On cost and time, the arithmetic is worth stating plainly. A contested divorce in the Family Court at Bengaluru on cruelty or desertion typically runs two to four years to a decree, with an appeal under Section 28 possible within ninety days after it. Reaching the Supreme Court, on top of that, is a further proceeding with its own cost, and Article 142 relief is discretionary rather than a right. Free legal aid for Supreme Court proceedings is available through the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, and in Karnataka through the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority, and women are entitled to legal aid regardless of income.
If you are advised to "just file on breakdown"
Ask which section that is under. In a district court there is no answer to that question, and a petition pleaded that way invites dismissal.