Matrimonial matters

In the first week of January lawyers dealing with Parsi matrimonial disputes wrote to the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court (BHC) requesting that a regular Chief Matrimonial Court be set up to enable regular hearings, reported Mumbai Mirror (MM) on February 8, 2012.

Marriage disputes in which both spouses are Parsis are not heard in a regular family court and delays in hearings have become a serious cause of concern with both lawyers and clients. In response to the letter the BHC has assigned two judges to hear these matters regularly. Cases dating before 1996 will be dealt with by Justice Roshan Dalvi while Justice Rekha Sondurbaldota has been assigned to hear later matters.

A special court comprising a High Court judge and five respected members of the community who volunteer their services as jury members hear Parsi matrimonial matters. The court sits for a mere two sessions on two consecutive days every six months, which leads to inordinate delays. "The list got long and most matters just didn’t reach hearing in this court,” a lawyer told MM. So, to expedite matters and clear the backlog a commissioner was appointed for recording evidence in the half year before the matrimonial court would meet. Interlocutory orders regarding maintenance, residence, etc could be heard during this interim period by a regular court without the jury. The High Court judge at the head of the commission could record evidence and hear parties so that the case could be put to the jury at the special court’s next hearing.

Though "this saved a lot of time... how many matters could the special court hear in those two days? It meant that many couples, whose turn did not come up in the two days once in six months, had to suffer,” solicitor Nityoah Mehta told MM. However, the judge heading the commission had to attend to regular matters as well, and the letter written to the BHC mentions that in 2010 the commission could not hold any session for nine months at a stretch. Also, after a lot of background work had been done on one case, the contesting spouse refused to respond to the commission and insisted that he would appear only before the jury!