The court granted a man a decree of divorce exparte (no contest) when the wife did not file a statement in reply to the complaint filed by the husband. The woman appealed against the order, explaining that she could not afford to file a reply as, despite court orders, her husband had refused to pay her litigation expenses. The lower court granted her appeal and set aside the divorce decree. The man then appealed to Allahabad High Court, which held that since the man had not paid his wife litigation expenses, she had been unable — not unwilling — to contest the divorce. So the lower court was right in setting aside the exparte divorce decree (Dinesh Kumar vs Smt. Santoshi Devi).
When a man retired, his employer refused to pay his pension and other benefits because a criminal case was pending against him. An FIR had been lodged against him on August 21, 2003, while he retired on March 31, 2005. The man filed a case against the organisation in Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court held that criminal proceedings are deemed to have been initiated when charges are framed against the person or a challan is issued to the criminal court in his or her name. In this case, neither had happened to date, so the court presumed that there were no criminal proceedings against the petitioner. Therefore, the court directed the petitioner’s employer to release all his retirement benefits (Atam Bodh Sharma vs State of Haryana).
The court declared a case non-maintainable when it was found that the petitioner had been declared of unsound mind about five years before he filed the suit. After the petitioner’s death, his wife filed an application seeking the court’s permission to add her signature to the petition since it had earlier been left out. Allahabad High Court ruled that the suit itself was not maintainable because a person of unsound mind had filed it, so the question of the wife adding her signature did not arise. The court advised her to file a fresh case if she had a complaint (Kaneeza Khatoon vs Shobarati and others).
SOLON
