Family courts can’t be liberal in giving adjournments only because litigant is a woman: Karnataka High Court

Karnataka High Court rules against liberal adjournments for women in family court cases, citing concerns over prolonged litigation.

Family courts and the High Court cannot adopt a liberal approach to grant adjournments only because applications are filed by women litigants, as such an approach would open the floodgates for taking adjournments and protracting the litigation, said the High Court of Karnataka.

The court made this observation while imposing a cost of ₹10,000 on a woman who had protracted the proceeding in 2019 on her husband’s plea before the Bengaluru family court for dissolution of their marriage and had obtained more than ₹27 lakh as interim maintenance from him during this period.

Justice Chillakur Sumalatha passed the order while dismissing the petition filed by a 35-year-old woman from Kanakapura town in Bengaluru South district. The petitioner had questioned the family court’s order rejecting her plea for further cross-examining her husband.

“This case reveals a very sorry state of affairs. In case the litigation in Indian courts is carried out in the manner in which the proceedings in this case went on till now, no case will be disposed within a decade. Breach of mandate of law is clearly found...”, the court observed while noticing that the petitioner did not complete the process of cross-examination for all these years and had been seeking permission for “further cross-examination” and adjournments at regular intervals.

The proceedings before the courts cannot be proceeded with at the whims and fancies of the parties as neither the Family Courts Act nor the Code of Civil Procedure can be taken aid to frustrate the proceedings or to cause inconvenience either to the other party or to the courts as such, Justice Sumalatha observed. The High Court imposed cost on her for intentionally dragging on the matter and wasting the time of both the courts.