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With a
large number of matrimonial disputes flooding the courts across
the country, the Supreme Court has expressed concern over
the ill effects of ‘irretrievably broken down marriages’ on
children.
“When
parents fight out their matrimonial disputes, sometimes acrimoniously,
the child, who has nothing to do with the fight and is the
ultimate victim, watches helplessly,” a Bench of Justice Arijit
Pasayat and Justice S H Kapaia said.
“The fight
goes on unmindful of the fact that in future the child carries
the tag of being one of a broken family. It is more stigmatic
for a girl child.
The stigma
becomes more visible when her marriage is thought of in later
years. This reality of life is, in most cases, lost sight
of,” the Bench observed while dealing with divorce case.
The court
wondered “whether laws which are really dynamic instruments
fashioned by society for the purpose of achieving human relations
by elimination of social tensions and conflicts have achieved
the intended objectives or are being used as weapons of an
assassin to harass and humiliate others instead of being used
as a sheild against injustice.”
The observations
came on a petition filed last year by a woman seeking transfer
of the divorce case filed by her husband in Chennai to Mumbai
rpt in Chennai to Mumbai.
The couple
got married in 1994 and had a daughter in 1995. The wife had
demanded Rs 8.5 lakh for the daughter while the husband was
ready to shell out Rs seven lakh only.
The court
asked the husband to keep Rs five lakh as fixed deposit in
a nationalised bank initially for a period of five years with
monthly interest withdrawal to meet the educational expenses
of the child.
It further
asked him to deposit a sum of Rs 3.60 lakh in a private bank
in the name of the daughter (represented by the mother as
her guardian) for 12 years which upon maturity would be Rs
8.70 lakh with a three-year lock in period.
The apex
court directed the husband to file an undertaking before the
concerned trial court that in case there is a shortfall in
the assured sum, he shall pay the balance amount to the wife.
All the
deposit shall be made within a period of six months, it said.
“On the
deposit being made…the suit for divorce filed by the respondent
(husband) in the Family Court, Chennai…. shall be treated
to be a joint petition for divorce, on the basis of mutual
consent and appropriate decree shall be passed,” the apex
court said.
“The allegations
made in the petition for divorce shall be treated to be in-consequential
in view of the fact that divorce shall be granted on mutual
consent,” the Bench said.
Source:
TOI
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