High Court of Himachal Pradesh: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Vivek Singh Thakur, J., allowed a petition preferred by the petitioner-wife for transfer of the petition filed by the respondent-husband under Section 13 (1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), 1955.
The respondent-husband filed a petition for dissolution of marriage under the above stated section of the HMA in the Court of learned District Judge, Kangra at Dharamshala. The petitioner-wife filed the instant petition for transfer of the earlier petition on various grounds including that she was residing at Delhi and it was not manageable for her to defend the petition effectively and properly in the District Courts at Dharamshala.
The High Court on perusal of record found that both the petitioner as well as the respondent was residing at Delhi. It was an undisputed fact that the parental place of the petitioner was at Nahan in District Sirmaur. Further, the petitioner had also filed a case against the respondent under Domestic Violence Act at Nahan. The Court was of the view that since the respondent was residing at Delhi and was facing a case under Domestic Violence Act at Nahan by engaging a lawyer at Nahan and Nahan was much nearer to Delhi in comparison to Dharamshala, therefore, it would not only be convenient to the petitioner but to the respondent also to prosecute as well as defend the proceedings at one place, i.e. Nahan, which was the nearest to the parties from the place of their present residence. The Court relied on its earlier judgments to hold that in the proceedings arising out of the matrimonial discord, it is the convenience of the wife which has to be given preference over the convenience of the husband.
Accordingly, the petition was allowed and the case pending before the District Judge, Dharamshala was transferred to the District Judge, Nahan. [Raveena v. Navdeep Kumar Chhetri, 2017 SCC OnLine HP 1797, order dated 27.12.2017]
