Allahabad High Court: In an appeal filed by the wife under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, arising from the order dated 11-08-2023 passed by the Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, filed under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, wherein the Court has dismissed the divorce proceedings instituted by her, due to lack of territorial jurisdiction, the division bench of Saumitra Dayal Singh and Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi, JJ. held that a casual visit to a place will not grant jurisdiction to the Court in that area to decide divorce proceedings.
The Court said that the term ‘residing’ though not defined under the Section 19 of the Family Courts Act, it clearly denotes more than a casual visit to a place falling within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court where a divorce proceeding may be instituted. The wife is residing in Australia and while on a brief visit to India, she has instituted the divorce proceedings. Thus, as she is residing in Australia, it has to be maintained in law that she is not residing within the territorial jurisdiction of the Family Court, Moradabad.
Thus, the Court found no error in the impugned order. However, it said that if the status of the wife’s residency changes that may give rise to fresh cause on the strength of that change of status.
[Adity Rastogi v Anubhav Verma, 2023 SCC OnLine All 2187, Order dated 28-10-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Counsel for Appellant: Advocate Dharmendra Vaish
