Siddharth Kasana Vs Smt. Monika Singh

Court No. - 34

Case :- FIRST APPEAL No. - 129 of 2019

Appellant :- Siddharth Kasana Respondent :- Smt. Monika Singh Counsel for Appellant :- Swetashwa Agarwal,Mohd. Saleem Khan Counsel for Respondent :- Bipin Kumar Tripathi,Ajay Yadav,I. N. Singh

¶4

Hon'ble Mrs. Sunita Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Jayant Banerji,J.

¶5

Lower court record has been received.

¶6

Sri Ajay Kumar and Sri I.N. Singh learned Advocates have put in appearance on behalf of the respondent.

¶7

Heard Sri Swetashwa Agarwal, and Mohd. Saleem Khan learned Advocates for the appellant, Sri Ajay Kumar and Sri I.N. Singh learned Advocates for the respondent and perused the record.

¶8

The present appeal is directed against the divorce decree dated 14.11.2018 which is an ex-parte decree passed on account of absence of appellant-husband before the trial court.

¶9

The submission of learned counsel for the appellant is that the appellant had been working in the State of Ireland at the time of institution of the divorce suit and, as such, he could not appear before the Family court, Meerut. He, however, had filed an application 21Ka on 23.7.2018 seeking recall of the order dated 19.7.2018 to proceed ex-parte which had been rejected vide order dated 5.11.2018.

¶10

A perusal of the said order indicates that the trial court had recorded that summons were duly served but no written statement was filed by the appellant nor anyone appeared to press the recall application. It may be noted that the recall application was filed by the father of the appellant who claimed to be the holder of the power of attorney of the appellant, with the prayer to send fresh summons through the Embassy of Ireland. The prayer made by the appellant had been rejected recording a finding that the notice was sufficiently served upon the appellant and there was no occasion for sending fresh summons through the Embassy. The order dated 5.11.2018 rejecting the application 21Ka for recall of the order dated 19.7.2018 to proceed ex-parte is not subject matter of challenge.

¶11

Having carefully perused the record and the order sheet of the trial court, we find that for a period of approximately eight months, the appellant did not appear in the court. The divorce decree has been passed on two grounds, i.e. cruelty and desertion of respondent wife. Respondent wife in the affidavit filed before the family court had categorically stated that she was thrown out of her matrimonial house within one month of her marriage. The marriage was solemnized on 15.2.2010 and she was deserted by the appellant on 15.3.2010, when he was in inebriated state. Stridhan and the jewellery belonging to the respondent-wife have been kept by the appellant. The affidavit of wife further states that the appellant had solemnized two more marriages after her desertion. The findings recorded by the trial court on cruelty cannot be said to suffer from any error of law, in as much as, they are proved by the evidence led by the respondent-wife on her affidavit.

¶12

An affidavit has been filed herein by the appellant-husband to assail the findings returned by the trial court but it has not been indicated as to when the appellant had left for Ireland and why he did not take his wife along with him. There is nothing on record which would indicate that the appellant was sending money to the respondent-wife to maintain herself when she was admittedly living with her parents in India.

¶13

From a perusal of the order sheet, it is evident that the appellant has not participated in the divorce proceeding for a period of more than eight months, while seeking unnecessary adjournments. He did not even file a written statement despite sufficient service of notice and remained absent after 14.9.2018.

¶14

The said facts themselves are sufficient to substantiate the findings on the issue of desertion of the respondent-wife returned by the trial court.

¶15

For all the aforesaid reasons, we do not find any justification to set aside the ex-parte divorce decree dated 14.11.2018 which is hereby affirmed.

¶16

The appeal is, accordingly, dismissed at the admission stage.

¶17

Order Date :- 9.11.2020 Harshita

Siddharth Kasana v. Smt. Monika Singh

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Siddharth Kasana v. Smt. Monika Singh

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

What the court decided

Issues for consideration

Procedural history

Parties & counsel

Coram

Case details

Similar cases

Smt. Nisha Vs Virendra Kumar

Ajay Sahani Vs State of U.P. and 5 Others

Mintu Vs State of U.P. and 2 Others

Ram Dulari Vs State of U P and 2 Others

Shivangi Verma Vs State of U.P. and 2 Others

Dwarika Prasad Nam-Dev Vs Vandana Nam Dev