Civil contempt p- plz resolve the query

@ Author,

1.Not every matter are Civil Contempt specially under various Family Laws. Willful disobedience or willful breach is the gravement of the charge of civil contempt.  "Mere disobedience" or breach with nothing more would not constitute civil contempt.

2. Once Court issues Notice to your wife to reply to your Civil Contempt Application all she shall reply is showing 'justifiable' reason for not making parties child available on X date and they can range from 'child being sick on that particular date' to 'she herself being sick on that particular date' to 'could not get a male companion to accompany her to comply the Order of visitation on that date' yet countering her alleged to be 'disobedience ' she can even say 'she complied Court order on date Y' and then she can go on to plead that 'she assure Court to comply visitation in letter spirit on all next dates of visitation'.which infact she does which you say in your brief that she comes after 1.5 on date Y and Court considers such reply in writing or oral from her or via her pleader and matter ends even in absence of insisting on a written reply to Notice from her and such matter can be heard 'on board' and disposed summarily. 

3. Regarding another Order of Court to submit one document it is her choice to comply otherwise it may go adverse or taken against her and you cannot force her to comply submission of one document by instituting another Contempt case! 

4. On next date of hearing, pray to ld. Judge to take matter on board and dispose the same instead of keeping Application pending as same can be summarily dealt with. If she is not present on the day when matter is being heard on board say in the morning session then her advocate can seek instructions and present her statement to bench for which matter taken in the morning can be heard in the afternoon session by giving her advocate time to seek instructions from his client accordingly and thus matter disposed summarily instead of kept pending for infinite. 

5. For visitation contempt what are your prayer(s) and have you plead basic elements to constitute her such act of date X constituting as civil contempt; the making of a valid court order, knowledge of the order by wife, ability of the wife to render compliance, and willful disobedience of the order?  

Hi Tajobsindia,

Thanks,

Order was to

• start visitation from 3rd May 2014 every saturday for 2 hours.
• Inform respondent before taking the child out of this court jurisdiction.
• etc

Wife did not started the visitation from May 2014...instead started from June. In between i missed 5 weeks of visitation.She sent a simple email on 2nd May 2014 , that child is out of this court jusrisdiction till June, though the order is to inform before taking her out of jurisdiction..

I raised these points on 3rd May and Judge issued notice to her. Its been 5 months but application is pending

@ Author,

1. I asked about your prayer paras and not about Order of Court as I know of "generic" Order(s) in S. 21 DV Act in favor of respondent (natural father).

2. However, it is not civil contempt. Reason being she complied with informing you one day ahead of visitation date that the child is out of court jurisdiction. Which means on next day and till child returns back to court jurisdiction she cannot bring child for visitation. Then when child returns back to court jurisdiction in June she complies visitation so the four basic ingredients that I mentioned under previous reply para 5 are fulfilled by her. 

3. Fault lies in your approach to seek visitation order previously and not in her act is my view. People should do "reverse engineering" (carry foresight into litigation) while seeking such Interim Orders as all special facts of wife is within your best knowledge compared to generic Application with generic prayer people file and thus get generic visitation order in their favor (which is short change Orders in my view ) yet same is within Law when differed with no recourse to remedy as hinted in para 2 above because you got a generic Order of visitation.

4. Matter ends from my side by stressing that the facts does not fall under Civil Contempt.
 

PS:

Reverse engineering which I used in my reply means when you filed Visitation Application you out to have prayed under Prayer paras; "in case wife is not able to bring child on date of visitation for whatever valid reasons she will compensate deferred visitation hours / time on all next date of visitations till it is equally compensated." and another prayer is "Parties may exchange telephone numbers in case of advancing deffernments'. By vehemently praying these quotes - unquotes apart from other generic once you are hinting to ld. judge that there would be in future occasions where wife will deffer visitation yet shown to comply Order of Court in spirit but "natural justice" demands that praying party should get equal compensation to acts of deferment thus "justice seems to have been done" even in such interim Orders is the idea you grill in to ld. judge. These you ought to have pre-judged the hard way since child is equally yours to be visited upon sufficiently and is not foreseen to be coming by generic Advocates when they draft Visitation Application and thus later they say file Contempt of Court Application as some sure shot relief application for which extra fees may be demanded from client.
 

[Last reply] 

Hi Tajobsindia,

Once again thanks for replying.

Prayer was as follows:

PRAYER:

It is, therefore, most humbly and respectfully prayed that this Hon’ble court may kindly be pleased to:

1)    Substantial & significant Time of Access be granted during Interim as follows observing the interim visitation guidelines of Hon’able Bombay High Court for children below 3 years.

a.    Weekend visitation be allowed during each Saturday for at least 2 hours and during the court dates in weekdays.

b.    Respondent be allowed to visit for at least 3 hours during the    holidays, festival and birthday days according to Bombay High court interim visitation guidelines.

c.    That, Respondent be allowed to be informed and grant access to child when the child is unwell.

d.    The child be granted enough time and frequency to understand and enjoy the love and affection of her father and grandparents.

2)    Direct the Petitioner to not remove the child from the jurisdiction of this Hon’ble court without the permission of this Hon’ble court and inform court if she leaves Pune. Child whereabouts should always be informed to Respondent if either of petitioner or child anyone going out of Pune.

3)    Further, this Honorable Court may kindly direct Petitioner and her Lawyer(s) not to bring unnecessary and notional obstacles/complications and/or interruptions to the Father-Daughter visit and Rightful access if granted by the honorable court(s) to the Respondent.

4)    Petitioner be asked to submit copy of all pages of her passport and child’s passport in Hon’ble court before next case date which will confirm travel details and bring original passport in the court for verification.

5)    Pass such other and further relief’s as this Hon'ble Court deems fit and proper in the interests of justice, equity and good conscience.

Order Was as Follows:-

1. Applicaton is partly allowed.

2. Respondent is allowed to meet his daughter evry saturday from 4 to 6 in a mall or garden which is under camera .

3. Respondent is allowed to meet on festivals and birthdays for 3 hours as per time convinient to both parties.

4. Applicant shall inform the respondent if child is unwell and during said period respondent is allowed to meet the child.

5.Applicant shall inform the respondent when they want to leave the jurisdiction of this court.

I again thank you for your insights on present matter.