Delhi High Court Directs Family Courts To Complete Witness Cross Examinations Expeditiously Without Embarrassment To Parties

The Delhi High Court has recently directed all the Family Courts in the national capital to ensure that the cross-examinations of witnesses are completed as expeditiously as possible, without causing any undue harassment or embarrassment to the parties.

A division bench comprising of Justice Rekha Palli and Justice Saurabh Banerjee observed that the Family Courts should ensure that the counsels for the parties are not permitted to ask irrelevant questions during cross-examination going on for days at a time.

“The nature of disputes before the Family Courts are generally pertaining to either seeking divorce on the grounds of cruelty, desertion, etc., or seeking custody of the minor children and it is therefore necessary that disputes raised in these petitions are decided expeditiously as envisaged under the Act,” the Court said.

“…we also expect co-operation in this regard from all the counsel(s) appearing before the learned Family Courts as unnecessary dragging of cross-examination is against the interest of both sides and the very spirit of the Family Courts,” it added.

The bench was dealing with an appeal filed by a wife challenging a family court order rejecting her request for deciding her application for maintenance before proceeding with the merits of the divorce. petition.

Her right to examine was also rejected on account of her inability to appear for cross examination.

The Court noted that the Family Court, in its anxiety to complete the trial in an old matter, overlooked the fact that in family matters, a little more sensitivity was required to be shown.

“In our considered view, in the present factual matrix when it was not a case where the appellant was not appearing for cross-examination, the learned Family Court ought not to have closed the right of the appellant to examine herself in such a hasty manner,” the Court said.

It added that the Family Court overlooked the fact that the appellant wife was working in a private concern and therefore could not be expected to get leave as and when she applied.

“In light of the aforesaid, we are constrained to allow the appeal partly by setting aside the impugned order to the extent that it closes the right of the appellant to examine herself by directing that the final arguments in the petition will not be heard till the cross-examination of the appellant is completed, for which purpose the learned Family Court, will be free to fix adate, with the consent of the parties, in January itself,” the Court said.

Title: X v. Y

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