(1.) These matters have been placed before this Bench by Hon'ble the Acting Chief Justice in terms of an order dated 09.01.2017, passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court in the captioned contempt petitions wherein the following four questions of law have been framed for consideration:-
(2.) We may clarify that the reference made to the three decisions referred to in para (D) above, is as follows:-
(3.) The backdrop in which the reference has been made by the learned Single Judge on the four questions of law extracted above, is that a batch of contempt petitions were placed before the said Court, alleging inter alia willful disobedience of the undertaking given by a spouse to appear, sign and file, both, the Section 13B(1) petition and the Section 13(B)(2) motion under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (in short "the Act"). The undertakings given by the spouses were accepted by the Court either at the stage of filing the Section 13B(1) petition or were incorporated in a consent decree. It was noted that except in CONT.CAS(C) 1147/2016 and 1251/2016, the undertakings in all the remaining cases, as furnished to the concerned courts and duly accepted, were against consideration. Following is a tabulated statement of the factual status of each case in these batch of petitions:-