Compromise decrees and execution maintainability hinge upon mutual consent divorce petitions being filed and acknowledged by the Family Court.

Devan Ramachandran , J.

The appellant challenges the order of the learned Family Court, Pathanamthitta, in EP No.17/2024 in OP (Others)

No.922/2022.

2. Concededly, the aforementioned Original Petition had been decreed based on a compromise between the parties (though there is an allegation that the said settlement had not been signed by respondents 2 and 3 herein); but, on the imputation that the same has not been complied with by the respondents herein, the appellant levied execution.

3. The learned Family Court has, however, dismissed the Execution Petition as not being maintainable for the reason that, as per the compromise, the parties ought to have filed a petition for divorce through mutual consent; and that it is only then, that the first respondent herein is obligated to return the money and the gold of the petitioner.

4. We have issued notice to the respondents, but though they have accepted the same, they are neither present in person nor represented through counsel. We have, therefore, been constrained to dispose of this appeal in their absence.

5. Sri.Hafeez Muhammed – appearing for the appellant, argued that the learned Family Court ought not to have dismissed the Execution Petition holding that the decree is not executable, because the application for decree of divorce through mutual consent had been filed and is still pending. He asserted that the learned Court omitted to note this vital fact; and consequently, that the impugned order is liable to be set aside. He prayed that this appeal, therefore, be allowed.

6. We have gone through the impugned order and, as rightly pointed out by Sri.Hafeez Muhammed, the learned Family Court has found the Execution Petition against the first respondent herein to be not maintainable because, as per the compromise between the parties, the gold and money of the appellant were to be returned by the said respondent at the time when the evidence of the petition for mutual consent is considered by it. The imputation in the order is that such petition has not been filed.

7. However, the specific case of the appellant – as voiced by her learned counsel Sri.Hafeez Muhammed is that such conclusion is factually wrong because the petition seeking divorce jointly by the parties had been filed and numbered as OP(HMA)

No.931/2023.

7. Indubitably, if the afore submission is true, then the factual basis of the impugned order is denuded. Obviously, the learned Court will have to consider this specifically.

In the afore circumstances, we allow this appeal and set aside the impugned order; with a consequential direction to the learned Family Court to reconsider EP No.17/2024 in OP(Others) No.922/2022, after affording necessary opportunities to both sides, thus culminating in an appropriate order thereon, as expeditiously as is possible.

Sd/- DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN JUDGE Sd/- M.B. SNEHALATHA JUDGE stu APPENDIX OF MA (EXE.) NO. 18 OF 2025 PETITIONER ANNEXURES Annexure A1 TRUE COPY OF THE COMPROMISE DECREE DATED