Family Courts should decide divorce cases within a year: High Court

When a matrimonial case involves a plea for divorce, the courts should aim to dispose of it within a period of note more than one year so that after the event of grant of a divorce decree, the parties may restructure their lives, said the High Court.

Justice Krishna S. Dixit directed while disposing of a petition filed by a man who had sought direction to a Family Court in Bengaluru to decide his application which was filed seeking dissolution of marriage with his spouse in 2016.

“It hardly needs to be stated that ‘life is lost in living’. Delay in disposal of such cases very badly affects the parties thereto, needs no deliberation,” the Court observed. Further, it also quoted a British historian and a great philosopher, Thomas Carlyle who had said, “Life is too short to be little.”

Right to Speedy Justice

Agreeing with the petitioner’s contention that he has a right to speedy justice under the Article 21 of the Constitution as per the apex court’s interpretation, the High Court further stated, “It is broadly in agreement with the proposition that matrimonial causes should be tried and disposed of on a war footing, at least as a concession to the shortness of human life.”

The High Court directed its Registrar-General to circulate the judgement of all the trial courts so that the litigants placed may not knock at the doors of the High Court seeking a direction for the expeditious disposal of their cases while directing the Family Court to dispose of the plea of the petitioner with a maximum period of three months.

 

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/courts-should-decide-pleas-for-dissolution-of-marriage-within-one-year-to-enable-litigants-to-restructure-their-lives-karnataka-high-court/article67127784.ece