New Delhi, June 29 (IANS) The Supreme Court has referred a matrimonial dispute between a husband and wife to mediation and appointed former apex court judge Justice M.R. Shah as the mediator to facilitate an amicable settlement between the parties.

A bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and Alok Aradhe passed the order after senior counsel appearing for both sides agreed that an attempt should first be made to resolve the dispute through mediation.

“In view of the consensus arrived at between the parties, we appoint Hon’ble Mr Justice M.R. Shah (Retd), former Judge of this Court, as the Mediator. We request the learned Mediator to accommodate the matter in his schedule and make an endeavour to facilitate an amicable settlement between the parties,” the top court ordered.

The Justice Mahadevan-led Bench directed the parties to approach the mediator and work out the modalities of the mediation, leaving it to the mediator to fix the schedule of the proceedings, terms, and conditions governing the mediation, and his remuneration, which will be shared equally by both sides.

It further ordered that the matter be listed after receipt of the mediator’s report and, till then, stayed further proceedings before the family court.

The dispute reached the Supreme Court after the wife challenged a Gujarat High Court judgment refusing to interfere with a family court order that had deferred consideration of her application under Section 379 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) till the stage of final arguments in pending matrimonial proceedings.

Before the apex court, senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, appearing for the wife, submitted that she had sought initiation of proceedings against her husband alleging false deposition, fabrication of evidence, and suppression of material facts, contending that he had made false statements to conceal his income and assets, which directly affected her maintenance claim and that of their seven-year-old minor child.

The senior counsel argued that postponing even a preliminary inquiry would effectively grant the husband impunity for making false statements and frustrate the administration of justice.

The submissions were opposed by senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, appearing for the husband, who contended that the family court had rightly exercised its discretion after hearing both sides and deciding to consider the application along with the final adjudication of the matrimonial proceedings.

Earlier this month, the Gujarat High Court had dismissed the wife’s petition, holding that the family court had neither rejected her application nor dismissed it, but had only deferred its consideration until the stage of final arguments.

“The learned Family Court has not dismissed or rejected the application submitted on behalf of the petitioner. Therefore, this court is at a loss to understand as to what prejudice is caused to the petitioner because of the order impugned in the petition,” a single-judge Bench of Justice M.R. Mengdey had observed.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Iqbal Singh Marwah, the Gujarat High Court further observed that “there is nothing in the entire judgment which would require the learned Family Court to order a preliminary inquiry at once upon an application being filed before it”, adding that the trial court would first be required to sift through the evidence to determine whether the alleged false evidence had any impact upon the administration of justice.

–IANS

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