RAJ RUPINDER KAUR Vs. HARWINDER SINGH RANU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition is directed against the order dtd. 30/4/2019 passed by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Bathinda (for short - the Trial Court) vide which the Trial Court dismissed the petitioner-wife's application through which she had prayed that in the joint petition filed by the parties under Sec. 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short -the Act) their statements be recorded through video conferencing on the ground that both the parties were residing abroad.

(2.) The facts, in brief, which are required to be noticed for adjudicating upon the present petition are that the parties had filed a joint petition under Sec. 13-B of the Act seeking therein dissolution of their marriage. Since both the parties were residing abroad, the petitioner-wife filed an application seeking permission of the Trial Court to record the statements of both the parties through video conferencing to which the respondent-husband, through his special power of attorney, consented. However, the Trial Court was of the opinion that such application deserved to be dismissed for the reason that if the statements of the parties were recorded through video conferencing, the Trial Court would not be in a position to make reconciliatory efforts to bring the parties together as also for the reason that an FIR bearing No.17 dtd. 17/2/2016, under Ss. 420/498-A/120-B IPC, registered at Police Station Cantt. Bathinda, was pending against the respondent-husband. Such order of the Trial Court is under challenge in the present proceedings.

(3.) Learned counsel for the parties submit that both the parties are living abroad; though they were married for over five years they cohabited only for two months; being mature enough they had decided that they could not live together; they have taken a joint decision to move on with their lives; the decision to part ways was taken by the parties only after several efforts for reconciliation had been made between them and that the afore-referred FIR has been quashed by this Court through order dtd. 8/7/2019 passed in CRM-M-7022 of 2019.