Mumbai: The Bombay High Court just recently mentioned that it is just the better half who has the option of picking the online forum to submit domestic violence procedures. The court enforced an expense of Rs 1 lakh on a hubby, to be paid to his separated better half, while declining his plea to move a domestic violence case from a magistrate’s court to the household court where divorce procedures are pending.
The High Court kept in mind that there are 2 other procedures submitted by the spouse likewise pending before the magistrate, so the other half’s argument of a possibility of clashing judgments being gone by the Judicial Magistrate First Class in Bandra and the household court does not have benefit.Justice Rajesh Patil, in an Oct 6 order, discussed that the matter was argued before him on 3 various dates for a significant amount of time.
The other half’s counsel, Gayatri Gokhale, pushed for enforcing expenses on the hubby for losing judicial time, highlighting that lots of litigants are awaiting their turn.The spouse submitted an application before the High Court to move the domestic violence problem versus him to the Family Court at Bandra, Mumbai. The High Court kept in mind that there were 3 procedures before the magistrate’s courts submitted by the partner, consisting of one case where a chargesheet was currently submitted in a criminal grievance of ruthlessness to the spouse under area 498A of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code and another for supposed perjury.
The spouse had actually applied for divorce before the household court.
After hearing his counsel, V M Siram, the High Court order kept in mind that the “husband’s only reason for seeking the transfer of one proceeding (Domestic Violence proceeding) out of three proceedings filed by the respondent-wife is that there should not be conflicting judgments and that the proceedings are at an initial stage.” The High Court, nevertheless, described Supreme Court judgments which specified that it is the benefit of the other half that needs to be thought about while handling the transfer case, provided the socio-economic paradigm in Indian society.The Supreme Court, in the 2022 judgment, specified, “wherever courts are called upon to consider the plea of transfer, the courts have to take into consideration the economic soundness of both parties, the social strata of the spouses and their behavioural pattern, their standard of life prior to the marriage and subsequent thereto, and the circumstances of both parties in eking out their livelihood and under whose protective umbrella they are seeking their sustenance to life.
“Justice Patil described his earlier choice in another matter where he held that while the transfer of domestic violence procedures to the household court is allowable, if the transfer case is not authentic, it can be declined on a case-by-case basis. The High Court specified, “one has to also keep in mind who is coming to the court for the transfer of the proceedings, whether it is the wife or the husband or any other party.
Since a choice is given to the aggrieved person under the Domestic Violence Act to choose the forum for reliefs…before the magistrate under Section 12 or to the civil court, family court, or criminal court under Section 26, such transfer if sought by a wife, considering the judgment of the Supreme Court… will have to be considered favourably.”