The Hindu : Family courts: Complicated cases come up for adjudication

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 26, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Family courts: Complicated cases come up for adjudication

By A. Subramani

CHENNAI May 25. Originally a mechanism for adjudicating straight and simple marital discords, family courts now seem to be grappling with complicated cases — ranging from an abandoned father demanding maintenance from his U.S-settled son to a 78-year-old gentleman seeking divorce just to ensure that his pension benefits do not reach his first wife.

In the first case, the 83-year-old father's only son is married and settled in the U.S.

With all contacts, including telephonic ones, drying up, along with finance, the father was left to fend for himself.

The old man approached the family court demanding maintenance from his son.

In the second case, brought by the Women Lawyers Association vice-president, Daniel Mary, the couple split, found other partners later, and were living without any contact with each other for over a quarter century. The man seeks a divorce from his first wife. Reason: she being his legal nominee, all his pension benefits would go to her in the event of his death.

Advocates analysing the cases reaching the family courts and lok adalats feel that most of them have three main features — ego problem, infidelity or/and economic independence — as reason for dispute. Of course, dowry and sexual harassment, besides the usual `other woman' factor, continue to be the main reasons for women seeking divorce.

Advocate D.B. Kalaichelve, who is on the Lok Adalat bench hearing family court issues, attributed the increase in the number of family disputes to `ego problems'. ``A young couple came with a divorce plea because the girl visited her parents without informing her husband's family. Since we felt there was a good chance for compromise, we held three counselling sessions. It did not help.''

Spouses detest their partners getting too close to any family member other than his or her own.

The number of dowry harassment cases has increased and almost all of them involve at least one or more female members from the husband's family.

Advocate Narmadha Sampath, who also sits on the Lok Adalat bench, says: ``It is a matter of concern that education and economic independence, which are supposed to be the yardstick to measure women's emancipation, have become counter-productive. Economically and educationally well-placed women tend to rush to family courts even at the slightest provocation''. The inability to adapt to new environments and reach an acceptable level of compromise irretrievably destroy marriages, she adds.

Ms. Kalaichelve says during litigation, parties show more interest in retrieving jewellery and cash given at the time of marriage, than saving the marriage. Misrepresentation of facts also contribute to divorce, she said, and remembered how a Deputy Superintendent of Police got his mentally unstable daughter married and faced disastrous consequences.

The pressure of having to carry twin burdens at office and home has a telling effect on women, who feel they are expected to slog at both the places, she says.

A former judge says presiding officers always give priority to reunion and will counsel compromise.

Another advocate recalls that a couple of cases reached the court corridors after the husband trusted, rather too much, the `findings' of `detective agencies'.

In a case of suspected fidelity, agencies gave a dossier containing photographs of the woman found talking to several of her office colleagues. During counselling, the husband insisted that every one in them was his wife's `boyfriend'.

Ms. Narmadha Sampath narrates a `fabulous marriage', finalised just because the groom was in the U.S. After the marriage, he returned to India, but stayed in touch with his girlfriend there. When his wife protested, he said he would prefer his U.S. girlfriend to her, and made her walk out of his house.

Then, without informing anyone, he went back to the U.S. and no one knows his whereabouts.

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