Dear Lawyers Club India,
My husband deserted me and my 5 month old daughter and moved cities in May 2009.
I sent him a legal letter in Oct 2010 after a year of separation asking him to appear for a meeting with lawyers to file for a mutual consent divorce.
He had, however, by then filed an RCR petition - the case was in court in June 2010 and I received the notice in Dec 2010. This move was in effect to protect himself from 498 A + paying maintenance for me and my then 2 yr old daughter. He has also added a long list of contrived allegations to the petition which seem to be self-contradictory to his purported intent!
Jan 2011 onwards we met several times, went through counselling as well in order to see if there was a way to reconcile. Despite my best efforts to offer a middle ground, however, he was not amenable to anything but his own terms for a future together.
In this entire period, he has not paid a total sum of 5k over 8 months in financial support for my child (who is a school goer now) through e-transfer and has actually otherwise washed his hands off her. I had never asked for the money and these payments started and stopped without any discussion or agreement.
Being hopeful of a reconciliation, I never responded to the RCR with a written statement challenging the allegations and his motives.
The present situation is that he has agreed to an MCD as he is moving cities once again and our 'situation' has simply stretched for too long. I am not interested in asking him for financial support. He is not at all interested in child custody.
Hence there will now be 2 cases in court - an RCR and an MCD...
My questions are - since so much time has elapsed, will the court still accept my WS? Can filing of an MCD mean that the RCR petition is automatically dismissed? Can he be penalised for filing a petition without merit? Can he be sued for defamation?
Is there anything I can / should do to protect myself as clearly he is working with a very calculating strategy. I have a good lawyer but am missing advice that can cause some degree of pressure on him to close the case fast enough.
Thanks a lot for your valuable inputs.
Regds
Tilottama
