Srinagar- The High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Thursday called for crushing ‘bad practice’ of labelling a woman as “divorcee” and called for issuance of circular-instruction that if any motion, petition or appeal was found to have the cause-title with such word or expression against the name of woman, such plea should not be diarized or registered.
“It is very painful to see how a woman, even as of today, is being treated,” said a bench of Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul.
“If a woman is being labelled and shown as ‘Divorcee’, as if it is her Surname/Caste, then a man, who divorces his wife, is also to be called and suffixed as ‘Divorcer’, which, however, would be a bad practice,” the court said, adding, “Such a practice should be stopped rather crushed”.
The court also directed that henceforth if any motion/petition/appeal indicates and reflects in its cause-title the word “Divorcee”, against the name of a woman, such a motion / petition/appeal should not be diarised or registered muchless entertained.
“To stop such a practice, a circular-instruction is required to be issued, instructing that if any motion/petition/appeal is found to have the cause-title with the word/expression ‘Divorcee’ against the name of woman, such a petition/motion/appeal should not be diarized/registered,” the court said, adding, “Such instructions should also be issued/transmitted to the Subordinate Courts.” In this regard, the court directed the Registrar Judicial to place the present judgement before the Chief Justice for passing of “kind orders and issuance of circular instructions, in view of above.”
The court made the observations while dismissing a review petition against its judgment on 18 October 2022 in a case essentially pertaining to matrimonial dispute.
“It may not be out of place to make a mention that it appears that this Court while rendering the judgement dated 18th October 2022 did not stare at the cause-title of the appeal styled by appellant as (P A Khan) v. …..(Divorcee),” the court said, adding, “However, while perusing Review Petition, this Court has found that the expression “Divorcee” has been attached and used by appellant/review petitioner with the name of respondent, which is unbecoming of and reflects his mindset.”
The court also imposed Rs.20,000 as cost on the review petitioner within one month from today. “In the event he fails to do so, the Registry (of the court) shall take all steps for its recovery.”
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