IMPORTANT POINT
The court upheld the Family Court's decision to allow objections to a counter claim, emphasizing the necessity of equity over technicalities in matrimonial disputes.

JUDGMENT :

Devan Ramachandran, J.

In the fasciculus and maze of the large amount of pleadings and documents produced by the parties, it is, in fact, a small question projected for our consideration.

2. Essentially, the issue merely relates to whether objections to a counter claim ought to be allowed or not; but has realms, touching upon the statutory provisions involved and procedure adopted by the learned Family Court.

3. The petitioner calls into question Ext.P32 order of the learned Family Court, Ernakulam, through which, I.A.No.5/2024 in O.P.No.2740/2021, filed by the respondent herein, has been allowed; thus permitting him to file objections to a counter claim filed by her in the Original Petition.

4. The parties are involved in matrimonial disputes; and the Original Petition was filed by the respondent herein, seeking a decree of divorce, which was originally filed before the Principal Family Court at Bengaluru as M.C.No.1504/2020. Subsequently, on the application of the petitioner herein, the matter was transferred to the learned Family Court, Ernakulam; and renumbered as O.P.No.2740/2021.

5. While the proceedings were thus pending, it transpires that the petitioner filed objections in the Original Petition, accompanied by a counter claim; and filed I.A.No.2/2023 dated 05.07.2023, seeking the delay in filing the above be condoned and said counter claim be accepted to file.

6. Pertinently, the petitioner has produced Ext.P35 - extract of the B-Diary proceedings of the learned Family Court; and both sides are ad idem that it contains the true record of the proceedings before the said Court.

7. Going by Ext.P35 B-Diary proceedings, even though I.A.No.2/2023 was filed by the petitioner herein – as said above, seeking that her objections to the Original Petition, as also the counter claim, be accepted beyond time - there is nothing on record to show that there was any application to condone the delay.

8. Curiously, the learned Family Court, by its proceedings dated 26.09.2023 – which is more than two months after I.A.No.2/2023 had been filed - records that PW1 (the respondent herein) had been examined and that no objections are seen to have been filed by him to the counter claim filed by the petitioner herein. It then records unambiguously that, “so far the respondent has not submitted before the Court that there was a counter claim, adjourned to 30.09.2023” (sic).

9. Before we proceed further, we must record that we had called for certain documents from the learned Trial Court in its original, as we will presently explain, one of them being I.A.No.2/2023. The endorsements on the said application shows that, even before an opportunity was given to the respondents herein to file objections, it was allowed on 26.09.2023, which is the date on which the learned Trial Court has recorded as afore, namely, that she had not submitted before it that there was a counter claim until that date.

10. It is also beyond dispute that the respondent herein, thereupon, filed I.A.No.4/2023, seeking permission to place on record objections to the counter claim; and that this was considered on 09.10.2023, when it was dismissed through order dated 09.10.2023 (produced as Ext.P26), finding that the said I.A did not contain the original signatures of the parties.

11. It is from this stage that the controversies in this case begin its life.

12. It is stated by the respondent that, on I.A.NO.4/2023 being dismissed in the afore fashion, he re-presented the very same application - verbatim in all attributes including the date - in its original, explaining that the earlier I.A.No.4/2023 was, in fact, e-filed and hence not containing the original signatures.

13. For some reason, which is unclear from even the records, the allegedly represented application was thereafter numbered as I.A.No.5/2024; and the parties are now in contest, as to when it was registered, and when it was allowed.

14. We, therefore, examined the originals of I.A.No.4/2023 and I.A.No.5/2024, which a