Family Court Should Not Give Adjournment For Long Period While Referring Parties To Court Counsellor: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has said that the family court should not give an adjournment for long period while referring the parties to a matrimonial dispute to a Court Counsellor for exploring the possibility of a settlement.

While preponing a matrimonial dispute pending before a family court which was adjourned to October 18, Justice Navin Chawla said:

“Even though the order records that there are approximately 4000 matrimonial cases of various nature pending before the learned Family Court, such a long adjournment is still not warranted. The Court has to keep a watch on the petition/counseling proceedings that take place before the Court Counselor on a regular basis, and such watch cannot happen if the Court adjourns the matter for such a long date.”

The court was hearing a plea moved by the husband seeking an expeditious disposal of his divorce petition before the family court in a time bound manner.

It was submitted on behalf of the husband that the family court had referred the parties to Court Counsellor to explore the possibility of arriving at an amicable settlement and adjourned further proceedings to October 18.

It was contended that there was no possibility of an amicable settlement of the disputes between the parties and therefore, the adjournment to such a long date was not warranted.

The counsel appearing for the wife said that there was no objection to preponement of the date of hearing of the case pending before the family court.

Hearing the parties, Justice Chawla said: “Even otherwise, I find that the learned Family Court, while referring the parties to a Court Counselor should not give an adjournment for such a long period.”

While preponing the matter to August 08, the court requested the family court not to grant any unwarranted adjournments to either party and to make an endeavour for expeditious adjudication of the case before it.

Title: RAVINDER SINGH BHASIN v. KANWALJIT KAUR & ORS.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 645

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