PV Vs. PK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The names of the parties be redacted in the record as notified hereinabove. The present appeal is directed against the judgment dtd. 16/2/2021 rendered by the learned Principal Judge, Family Court, District Shahdara, Karkardooma, Delhi in HMA petition No. 687/2015. The Family Court has decreed the said divorce petition preferred by the respondenthusband against the appellant-wife finding that the ground of cruelty under Sec. 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act has been made out by him against the appellant.

(2.) The parties were married on 6/5/2014. They hardly lived together and separated on 30/7/2014. Even during this period, they were not living together all the time, since the respondent went away to Australia after the marriage, and the appellant joined him later in Australia. The instances relied upon by the respondent-husband to establish perpetration of the cruelty have been set out in the impugned judgment. We may cull out the following paragraphs from the impugned judgment:

(3.) The submission of Mr. Mittal, learned counsel for the appellant is that the Family Court failed to take into consideration Sec. 14 of the Family Court's Act, which states that the Family Court may receive as evidence any report, statement, documents, information or matter that may, in its opinion, assist it to deal effectually with a dispute, whether or not the same would be otherwise relevant or admissible under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Mr. Mittal submits that the Family Court had rejected some of the evidence produced by the appellant on the ground that they were compact discs containing the statements of the appellant recorded before the police authorities and medical doctors in Australia, on the ground that the appellant had failed to place on record transcripts of the said compact discs and that the doctors before whom the statements were recorded were all private medical practitioners in Australia. Mr. Mittal submits that the statements recorded in the said compact discs could not have been rejected at the threshold, and should have been considered under Sec. 14 of the Family Court's Act. In support of his submissions, he has sought to place reliance on Deepali v. Santosh [2018 (1) Mh. L.J 944] and in particular on paragraph 7 thereof, the relevant part thereof reads as follows: