Section 24 CPC: Mere Inconvenience Of Wife To Attend The Court Not A Ground To Transfer Matrimonial Proceedings: Calcutta HC [Read Judgment]

The Calcutta High Court has held that mere inconvenience of wife to attend the court is not a ground to transfer a matrimonial suit to another court.

In her application filed under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the wife had pleaded following grounds for transfer of matrimonial suit pending at Alipore Court to Mallarpur.

• That she has a five year old female child and is not in a position to attend the Court at Alipore, South 24 Parganas inasmuch as she stays at her parental home in the district of Birbhum.
• In attending the Matrimonial Suit in the Court at Alipore she has to travel 225 kilometres which might take five hours from Mallarpur, Birbhum to Alipore Court.
• Mallarpur P.S. Case No. 29 of 2019 dated 30.01.2019 is pending at Rampurhat Court, District Birbhum where the opposite party and his family members have to attend.

Justice Sahidullah Munshi, while dismissing the petition observed:

In my view, simply because the wife feels inconvenient to attend Court at Alipore is no ground for withdrawal of Matrimonial Suit from the Court at Alipore and to transfer it in the district of Birbhum. From the averments it does not appear that there was no cause of action for filing the Matrimonial Suit in the Court at Alipore. Therefore, the ground of inconvenience pleaded by the petitioner/wife has to be weighed with other attending circumstances.

The Court also dismissed her plea to transfer the custody petition filed by her husband observing that since the father is the natural guardian of the minor daughter who has crossed five years, she was supposed to stay with the natural guardian in ordinary parlance and father being a permanent resident of Kolkata there was no wrong in instituting the Act VIII proceeding in the Court at Alipore jurisdiction. 

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