Strike off defense and its impacts on divorce case
Sathya Shanmugavlu
(Querist) 13 February 2023
This query is : Resolved
Dear Experts,
My Wife filed Divorce in year 2018 on Mental Cruelty, so far no evidence provided in her case.
My defense in her divorce petition might get struck off, owing to the failure to pay some of her interim maintenance order.
What impact will it have on her divorce ? Will she automatically get her divorce ordered on her favor, even without any evidence provided ? Or will I lose ability to defend against her case, but still case will proceed based on merits of evidence etc.
Thanks & Regards,
Sathya
kavksatyanarayana
(Expert) 13 February 2023
If she/her counsel produces evidence for why she filed the case will go on her side.
Advocate Bhartesh goyal
(Expert) 13 February 2023
Your wife filed divorce petition on ground of cruelty so burden to prove cruelty lies on her and she has to prove cruelty by cogent oral and documentary evidence and if she fails to prove it then she is not entitled to get decree of divorce and her petition will be dismissed. In case Court pass order and struck off your defence still then you are entitled to cross examine your wife and her witnesses but you can't adduce your evidence.Court will decide the petition on merits and not on her pleadings.
Sathya Shanmugavlu
(Querist) 14 February 2023
Thanks for the updates. So far she has not provided any evidence and I guarantee she does not have any evidence to prove the mental cruelty.
(It is just this Interim Maintenance and the eventual strike off defense that I was afraid whether it weakens the main case).
T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate
(Expert) 31 August 2023
Striking off the defence of the respondent is an order which ought to be passed in the last resort, if the Courts find default to be willful and contumacious, particularly to a dependent unemployed wife, and minor children.
But it does not necessarily follow that once the defence is struck off, the defendant is completely helpless and his conduct of the case should be so crippled as to render a decree against him inevitable. To hold so would be to impose on him a punishment disproportionate to his default.
Sathya Shanmugavlu
(Querist) 02 September 2023
Thanks Kalaiselvan sir and other experts.
If I have already been taking good care of my kids education, paying school fees, joining them in Aakash, Allen institutes for higher education....and having RCR order in favour of me in my hand (EXCEPT I WAS NOT ABLE TO PAY MONTHLY MAINTENANCE OF INR 40000, AS PER INTERIM ORDER) would this still go for Defense Struck off....
Sathya Shanmugavlu
(Querist) 02 September 2023
Thanks Kalaiselvan sir and other experts.
If I have already been taking good care of my kids education, paying school fees, joining them in Aakash, Allen institutes for higher education....and having RCR order in favour of me in my hand (EXCEPT I WAS NOT ABLE TO PAY MONTHLY MAINTENANCE OF INR 40000, AS PER INTERIM ORDER) would this still go for Defense Struck off....
