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2018 Supreme(AP) 420

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT HYDERABAD FOR THE STATE OF TELANGANA AND THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH
M. Satyanarayana Murthy, J.
Chejerla Srilakshmi – Appellant
Versus
Chejerla Ramesh Babu – Respondent
Tr. CMP No. 80 of 2018
Decided On : 15-02-2018

Advocates Appeared:
For the Appellant : Unnam Muralidhar Rao.

Headnote:

Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – Section 24 – Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 – Section 19 – Transfer Petition – Territorial jurisdiction – Petitioner-wife to withdraw FCOP pending file of Judge, Family Court and transfer same to Senior Civil Judges Court on ground that she is an indigent person having no means to meet expenses for traveling and other incidental expenses and that she cannot undertake journey covering distance of more than 600 kilometers to appear before Court – Contend that Court can withdraw pending O.P. from Court at Visakhapatnam and transfer same to Court at Kandukuru as petitioner is residing at Kandukuru basing on convenience of both parties and that when respondent is residing at a far of place i.e. at Hyderabad by attending to his employment, filing of O.P. at Visakhapatnam is nothing but harassment and prayed for the above relief – Held, In view of the law declared by apex Court, it is left open to Court, after failure of settlement, to find out the feasibility of Video conference and decide whether it would sub-serve the cause of justice – Court to which petition shall be presented. Every petition under the Act shall be presented to the District Court within the local limits of whose ordinary original civil jurisdiction the marriage was solemnized, or respondent at the time of the presentation of the petition, resides, or the parties to the marriage last resided together, or petitioner is residing at the time of the presentation of the petition, in a case where the respondent is, at that time, residing outside the territories to which this Act extends, or has not been heard of as being alive for a period of seven years or more by those persons who would naturally have heard of him if he was alive. Therefore, a petition can be filed at anyplace specified from (i) to (iv) of Section 19 of the Act – Respondent and the petitioner lastly resided together at Visakhapatnam and filed the O.P. on the file of the Court at Visakhapatnam – No motive is attributable to the respondent prima-facie in filing the O.P. at Visakhapatnam since the cause of action arose at Visakhapatnam – However territorial jurisdiction cannot be decided in present petition since the jurisdiction of this Court is limited and the petitioner is at liberty to raise such contention before the Court at Visakhapatnam – Transfer civil miscellaneous petition disposed of.

ORDER :

1. This petition under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure (for short, CPC) is filed by the petitioner-wife to withdraw FCOP No. 1787 of 2017 pending on the file of the learned Judge, Family Court, Visakhapatnam (for short, the Court at Visakhapatnam) and transfer the same to Senior Civil Judge's Court, Kandukuru, Prakasam District (for short, the Court at Kandukuru), on the ground that she is an indigent person having no means to meet the expenses for traveling and other incidental expenses and that she cannot undertake journey covering distance of more than 600 kilometers to appear before the Court at Visakhapatnam. At the hearing, learned Counsel for the petitioner reiterated the same grounds and placed reliance on the judgment of the apex Court in T. Gayatri Devi vs. Tallepaneni Sreekanth, 2013 LAWS 830 (SC), to contend that the Court can withdraw the pending O.P. from the Court at Visakhapatnam and transfer the same to the Court at Kandukuru as the petitioner is residing at Kandukuru basing on the convenience of both parties and that when the respondent is residing at a far of place i.e. at Hyderabad by attending to his employment, filing of the O.P. at Visakhapatnam is nothing but harassment and prayed for the above relief.

2. The first and foremost ground urged before this Court is that the petitioner is an indigent person, not in a position to appear before the Court at Visakhapatnam on every date of adjournment in connection with the O.P. This ground is not sufficient to withdraw and transfer the O.P. If a direction is given to the Court at Visakhapatnam, not to insist the petitioner's personal appearance on every date of adjournment except on the day when reconciliation proceedings will be taken up as required under the Family Courts Act or on the day when her cross-examination is required to be recorded or on any other day when her personal appearance is required, as directed by the Court subject to payment of traveling and other incidental expenses to the petitioner and to the person who accompanies her to appear before the Court in connection with the O.P. it would suffice to overcome the difficulty of her indigence.

3. The other ground is that it is difficult for the petitioner to travel more than 600 kilometers from Kandukuru to Visakhapatnam where the O.P. is pending but in view of the direction referred above, this is also not a ground as she is not required to appear before the Court at Visakhapatnam except on the date of reconciliation proceedings and even if she is unable to appear before the Court at Visakhapatnam for recording her cross-examination, she may apply for appointment of advocate commissioner and on filing such application, the Court at Visakhapatnam has to consider the same in accordance with law. The other contention of learned Counsel for the petitioner is the hardship being caused to the petitioner on account of filing O.P. on the file of the Court at Visakhapatnam but this is also no more a ground in view of the direction issued by this Court in the earlier paras.

4. Learned Counsel for the petitioner has relied on T. Gayatri Devi's case (supra), wherein the apex Court held that hardship of the parties is also one of the considerations and exercised jurisdiction under Section 24 of C.P.C. while withdrawing OP No. 1256 of 2011 pending on the file of the learned Judge, Family Court, Hyderabad, and transfer the same to Family Court at Kakinada but in view of the direction referred above, this hardship is also not a ground and in the recent judgment in Santhini vs. Vijaya Venketesh, (2018) 1 SCC 1, the apex Court discussed the law declared in various judgments, where inconvenience of the wife alone is taken into consideration and held as follows:

"In Mona Aresh Goel vs. Aresh Satya Goel, (2000) 9 SCC 255, the three Judge Bench was dealing with the transfer of the matrimonial proceedings for divorce that was instituted by the husband in Bombay. The prayer of the wife was to transfer th



















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