ORDER

The petitioner is before this Court calling in question order dated 01-10-2022 passed by the Principal Family Judge, Udupi on I. A. No.V in M. C. No.404 of 2021 whereby the concerned Court Page No.2 is retyped and replaced vide Court order dated 12.04.2023.

rejects the application of the petitioner to restrain the respondent from proceeding with the proceedings in Australian Court.

2. Brief facts that lead the petitioner to this Court in the subject petition, as borne out from the pleadings, are as follows:-

The petitioner is the husband and the respondent is his wife.

The two get married on 19-08-2013 at Udupi and from 2013 to 2019 the husband and the wife were residing at Bangalore which forms their matrimonial home. In the month of September 2019 it appears that the husband had to move to Australia for the purpose of his avocation. In November 2019 the wife also moves to Australia to reside with the husband. Both of them work in Australia. In the month of March 2020, just before the onset of COVID-19 when the petitioner had no active project in his kitty comes back to India for a month as he had some projects beyond the month of April, 2020. Lock-down was clamped on 24-03-2020 and the petitioner was unable to move back to Australia but the wife continued to stay there. The wife applies for a permanent resident Visa both for the petitioner and herself which the Australian authorities also granted in the month of May 2021. In the light of grant of Visa, the petitioner sought to move back to Australia. The averment in the petition is that a notice comes to be issued in M.C.No.404 of 2021 from the Court at Udupi which was instituted by the respondent/wife seeking divorce from the petitioner. The petitioner then claims to have filed his defense to the respondent’s petition seeking divorce and also registered a counter claim seeking restitution of conjugal rights. The respondent then appears to have withdrawn the petition for divorce on 15-07-2022. It is later the petitioner gets a notice from the Federal Court and Family Court of Australia for such divorce. Then the petitioner comes to know that the wife had instituted proceedings seeking decree of divorce before the competent Court at Australia on 21-07-2022 after having withdrawn the case pending before the jurisdictional Court at Udupi on 15-07-2022.

3. The petitioner files his response to wife’s application for divorce before the Federal Court of Australia and also files an application/I.A.No.V in M.C.No.404 of 2021 in which counter claim was filed by him seeking restitution of conjugal rights. The application was seeking a restraint order from the hands of the Court at Udupi with regard to the proceedings in Australia. The respondent files her objections to the said application. The Court, by the impugned order, rejects the application in terms of its order dated 01.10.2022. Being aggrieved by the non-grant of an interim order of stay of proceedings in Australian Court, the petitioner is knocking at the doors of this Court in the subject petition.

4. Heard Sri Manu P.Kulkarni, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and Sri Shobhith N.Shetty, learned counsel appearing for the respondent.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner would vehemently contend that the case before the Court at Udupi was withdrawn by the respondent without seeking liberty or lien to file another petition. It is his submission that the concerned Court failed to consider material documents produced by the parties as well as admission subjecting themselves to the exclusive jurisdiction of Indian Court and, therefore, the proceedings before the Court at Australia was without jurisdiction. It is his contention that the principle of grant of anti-suit injunction as laid down by the Apex Court in plethora of cases is given a go-bye by the concerned Court.

It is his submission that convenience of the parties should not be permitted to such an extent that whenever they are at a particular place they ar