2nd marriage not violence against divorced 1st wife: HC

2nd marriage not violence against divorced 1st wife: HC

Vaibhav.Ganjapure@timesgroup.com

Nagpur:17.08.2021

The Nagpur bench of Bombay HC has ruled that the act of a man marrying for the second time can’t be treated as a case of domestic violence against his divorced first wife.

Admitting a petition filed by a Jalgaon resident, his parents and sister, Justice Manish Pitale said the primary appellant's first wife could have filed a case against her ex-husband under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, only if she were still married to him. "But the said fact in itself (the man marrying a second time) would not be enough for her to initiate proceedings under the DV Act since the divorce proceedings have attained finality."

The judge censured the Akola-based woman for filing a case against her in-laws to "harass them", calling it an "abuse of the process of law".

"The wife could not be permitted to keep the husband and in-laws engaged in litigation in this form, when the DV Act’s requirements did not appear to be satisfied. The chronology of events indicates that she sought to invoke provisions after her divorce case attained finality up to the Supreme Court. It was not as if she initiated a proceeding during the matrimonial discord between the parties," Justice Pitale said.

Quashing an Akola court's May 17, 2016, notice rejecting the petition to dismiss proceedings sought by the wife under the domestic violence act, the judge pointed out that it was only after she suffered "adverse orders" in the divorce case that she sought to invoke that law.

Full report on www.toi.in