YATNA ALIAS RACHNA Vs. RAJESH JAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure for transfer of a petition under Section 13 of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short "the Act") from Jalandhar to Hoshiarpur.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner by referring to the averments made in the petition submitted that due to strained relations between the parties, a criminal case was got registered by the petitioner-wife against the respondent and other members of his family in Police Station Mahilpur, District Hoshiarpur. The petitioner having no independent source of income and being at the mercy of her parents also filed a petition claiming maintenance against the respondent which is also pending at Hoshiarpur. The respondent, however, filed the divorce petition against the petitioner at Jalandhar. The counsel, thus, submitted that since the petitioner is residing in district Hoshiarpur along with her parents, she is finding it very difficult to attend the proceedings at Jalandhar along with her minor son and she also apprehends danger to her life from or at the instance of the respondent while visiting Jalandhar all alone to attend the proceedings in the divorce petition and, therefore, having regard to inconvenience being faced by her, the prayer made in this petition deserves to be accepted.

(3.) I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record. Question of transfer of matrimonial proceedings in almost similar circumstances came up for consideration earlier as well before this Court in a number of cases and in all those cases, it was solely the convenience of the wife that was given due weightage for ordering transfer of the proceedings at or near the place where the wife was residing. A few judgments deserve to be noticed here to fortify the prayer made in this petition. In Veena alias Arti v. Pawan Kumar, 1998(1) RCR(Civil) 558 (P&H) : 1998(1) M.L.J. 316, the proceedings under Section 9 of the Act filed by the husband at Sultanpur Lodhi were ordered to be transferred to Amritsar by this Court. In Smt. Sonia v. Rajnish Kumar Arora, 1997(2) RCR(Civil) 361 (P&H) : 1998(1) M.L.J. 37, this Court ordered transfer of petition under Section 9 of the Act from Ludhiana to Amritsar. On yet another occasion, recently in Suman v. Gopal, 2003(4) RCR(Civil) 26 (P&H), M.M. Kumar, J. having regard to the observations of the Supreme Court in Sumita Singh v. Kumar Sanjay and another, A.I.R. 2002 SC 36 and Neelam Kanwar v. Devinder Singh Kanwar, 2001(1) M.L.J. 509 (S.C.), ordered the transfer of matrimonial proceedings from Gurgaon to Faridabad. The observations made in all these cases are not being reproduced to avoid unnecessary burdening this order, but the sole factor that has been kept in mind while ordering transfer is that it is the convenience of the wife which is of paramount consideration. The grounds for transfer as set out in the present petition are almost similar to those as in the above judicial precedents. In view of the above, the petition deserves to succeed and is accordingly allowed. Consequently, the petition under Section 13 of the Act titled as "Rajesh Jain v. Yatna alias Rachna", a copy of which has been attached as Annexure A-1 to this petition, pending in the Court of District Judge Jalandhar is ordered to be transferred to the file of District Judge, Hoshiarpur. It will be open to the District Judge Hoshiarpur to dispose of transferred petition either himself or to assign it to any other Court of competent jurisdiction at Hoshiarpur. Since further proceedings before the trial Court were stayed by this Court, the parties though their counsel are directed to appear in the Court of District Judge, Hoshiarpur on 28.9.2005 for appropriate orders. Petition allowed.