Wife’s convenience in matrimonial disputes not thumb rule: High Court
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear the courts generally lean towards considering wife’s convenience while deciding applications seeking transfer of matrimonial disputes from one place to another, while this is not an absolute rule.
Making it clear that a blanket approach could not be adopted, the Bench ruled that various circumstances were required to be evaluated on a case-to-case basis. The assertion came as the court dismissed a transfer petition filed by a woman seeking relocation of a divorce case from one court to another.
Taking up the matter, Justice Archana Puri asserted: “It is pertinent to mention that there is general tendency among the courts to consider the convenience of the wife in case of transfer applications relating to the matrimonial dispute. However, it is not a thumb rule. Various other circumstances coming forth also ought to be taken into consideration while deciding the transfer application”.
Justice Puri added the courts were vested with “wide discretion” to consider a range of aspects emerging from the matter. The case was placed before the Bench after a transfer application was filed by the wife in an ongoing divorce petition pending before the family court in Mohali.
The Bench was told that the marriage between the parties took place on November 5, 2019, but no child was born out of the wedlock. They were living separately due to a matrimonial discord. The wife, employed as a clerk at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Fatehgarh Sahib, sought the transfer citing difficulty in pursuing the case at Mohali due to about 40 km distance between the two stations.
The husband’s counsel on the other hand contended that the wife was not facing significant inconvenience as she was in stable government employment and financially sound. He further argued that the actual distance between Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib was 30 km and had been falsely projected as 40.
He added that both locations had good connectivity, making travel manageable.
After hearing rival contentions and taking note of the submissions, the Bench asserted: “In the case in hand, the applicant is doing a government job and working as a clerk in the DC complex and that too at Fatehgarh Sahib, where she wants the divorce petition to be transferred. The distance between the two places is 30 km only and both the stations have good connectivity of transportation. Considering the circumstances, no case is made out for acceptance of the transfer application. Hence, the same is hereby dismissed”.
