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Cannot Be Used To Quash Plea: MP High Court
The has firmly ruled that a petition under of the Constitution cannot be employed to quash proceedings for pending before a . Justice Amit Seth dismissed a husband's , holding that the under is not a substitute for the of subordinate courts and cannot be used to question a .
Case Background and Parties
The dispute arose from a matrimonial rift between Devashish Yadav (husband/petitioner) and Gunjan Yadav (wife/respondent). The wife had filed an application under
(HM Act) before the
, Gwalior
, seeking
. The husband, in turn, approached the High Court under
, seeking to quash those proceedings, arguing they were a
"
"
and a "
" to his own
. Notably, a coordinate bench had earlier allowed the husband's petition, but that order was subsequently recalled on review in
, relying on the
's ruling in
K. Valarmathi v. Kumaresan
.
Arguments Presented
Counsel for the husband, , contended that the wife's Section 9 application was intended solely to harass him, especially since she had previously refused to cohabit when he had filed a similar application in . He argued that the proceedings amounted to an abuse of process.
However, counsel for the wife, , raised a preliminary objection on . He argued that is purely supervisory and cannot be used to bypass statutory remedies or supplant the 's . He also pointed out that the earlier had already rejected the same arguments, making the issue binding between the parties.
Legal Analysis: The Limits of
The court framed the central question: Can be invoked to quash proceedings under Section 9 of the HM Act or to reject a in civil jurisdiction? Examining the scheme of the and the HM Act, Justice Seth noted that a is deemed a civil court under , and decrees under Section 9 are appealable under . Thus, proceedings under Section 9 are civil in nature.
Relying heavily on the 's decisions in
Jacky v. Tiny Alias Antony
(2014) and
K. Valarmathi v. Kumaresan
(2025), the court observed that
"in no case power under
can be exercised to question a
."
The bench underscored that allegations of harassment or abuse of process are questions of fact that must be established through evidence, not through a
. The court further noted that
"
to reach hasty outcomes is an undesirable propensity of an overburdened judiciary,"
and that such impulses render
"
."
Key Observations
"If a suit is not maintainable it was well within the jurisdiction of the High Court to decide the same in appropriate proceedings but in no case power under can be exercised to question a ."(Quoting Jacky v. Tiny )
"The correctness or merits of the same cannot be gone into by this Court in the present proceedings."
Court's Decision
The High Court dismissed the petition on the ground of
. It held that the husband's attempt to use
to quash the wife's restitution proceedings was impermissible, as the proper remedy lies before the
itself, with an
available thereafter. However, the court granted the husband liberty
"to seek remedy as may be permissible in law,"
leaving the door open for him to contest the matter on merits before the trial court.
The judgment reiterates the strict boundaries of jurisdiction and serves as a reminder that constitutional remedies cannot be used to circumvent established procedural law in matrimonial disputes.
