Very Painful To See How A Woman Even Today Is Treated: J&K&L High Court Slams Man For Referring His Wife As ‘Divorcee’ In Appeal
The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court dismissed a Review Petition filed by a man and imposed a cost of Rs. 20,000/- on him.
The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has showed its concern over usage of word ‘Divorcee’ for a woman in a Petition or Appeal.
The Court was hearing a Review Petition filed by a man, seeking review of the 2022 Judgment passed by the High Court in an Appeal.
A Single Bench of Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul remarked, “If appellant/review petitioner has used this word/expression of “Divorcee” against the name of respondent, then he should have also used the word/expression “Divorcer” against his name. It is in view of this fact that the aforesaid expression/word used by appellant/review petitioner against the name of respondent has not been mentioned/ typed in cause-title of this judgement. … It is very painful to see that how a woman, even as on today, is being treated.”
The Bench said that if a woman is being labelled and shown as ‘Divorcee’, as if it is her Surname/Caste, then a man, who divorces his wife, is also to be called and suffixed as ‘Divorcer’, which, however, would be a bad practice.
Advocate I. Sofi appeared on behalf of the Petitioner/husband while none appeared on behalf of the Respondent/wife.
Facts of the Case
The grounds on which review was sought in this case by the husband were: that while passing Judgment under review, Appeal was dismissed on merits whereas counsel for Petitioner argued the case on preliminary issue of maintainability of Appeal in terms of Order dated 19th May 2022; that Appeal was fixed on 30th May 2022, on which date counsel for Respondent was not available and adjournment, sought on his behalf by proxy counsel, was granted and the matter was posted for 1st June 2022 for continuation of arguments; that on 1st June 2022, the matter was argued on maintainability of Appeal and case reserved and, thus, main Appeal was not argued at all on merits; that the Court has not decided the objection vis-à-vis maintainability of Appeal and instead decided main Appeal which was not argued on merits at all; that Appeal was decided without arguing the matter on merits and without hearing counsel for Petitioner on merits which fact is born out from the records and interim Orders, therefore, error and mistake apparent on the record which require recalling of the Order/Judgment.
In the Appeal, the Review Petitioner sought setting aside of the Order passed by the Principal District Judge, Srinagar, deciding five Applications, four filed by the Review Petitioner and one by the Respondent.
Court’s Observations
The High Court in the above regard, observed, “Having regard to all that has been said above, the Trial Court while rendering impugned order has taken note of all aspects of the matter and as a consequence of which, it is reiterated that appeal is dismissed as has been so done by this Court vide judgement dated 18th October 2022.”
The Court said that while rendering the Judgment in 2022, it did not stare at the cause-title of the Appeal, however, while perusing Review Petition, it found that the expression ‘Divorcee’ has been attached and used by the Review Petitioner with the name of Respondent, which is unbecoming of and reflects his mindset.
“Such a practice should be stopped rather crushed. And henceforth if any motion/petition/appeal indicates and reflects in its cause-title the word “Divorcee”, against the name of a woman, such a motion / petition/appeal should not be diarised or registered muchless entertained”, it added.
The Court, therefore, concluded that to stop such a practice, a circular-instruction is required to be issued, instructing that if any Motion/Petition/Appeal is found to have the cause title with the word/expression ‘Divorcee’ against the name of woman, such a Petition/Motion/Appeal should not be diarized/registered and such instructions should also be issued/transmitted to the Subordinate Courts.
Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the Review Petition, imposed a cost of Rs. 20,000/- on the Review Petitioner, and directed the Registrar Judicial to place its Judgment before the Chief Justice for passing of Orders and issuance of circular instructions.
Cause Title- ABC v. XYZ
