Srinagar: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Thursday called for crushing the practice of labelling a woman as divorcee and directed issuance of instructions that if a petition is found to have the case-title with such a word or expression against the name of that woman, the plea should not be diarized, entertained or registered.
Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul hearing a related petition recorded “it is very painful to see how a woman, even as on today, is being treated” and imposed Rs 20,000 as cost on the review petitioner man who had divorced his wife and used ‘divorcee’ in his petition.
Justice Koul ordered “if a woman is being labelled and shown as divorcee, as if it is her surname/caste, then a man, who divorces his wife, should also be called and suffixed as divorcer, which, however, would be a bad practice. But such a practice should be stopped, rather crushed.”
He also directed “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, much less entertained”.
The court said that 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.
“Such instructions”, the court said “should also be issued/transmitted to the subordinate courts”
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 observations were made while dismissing a review petition against a judgment of 2022 in a case pertaining to a matrimonial dispute.
The court further said “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 Parvez Ahmad Khan versus XYZ Divorcee)”.
While perusing the review petition, the judge found that the expression “divorcee” has been attached and used by appellant/review petitioner with the name of the respondent lady, which is unbecoming of and reflects his mindset.”
