The Delhi High Court has given some relief to a Mumbai-based businessman whose divorce case has been stuck for the past five years over the maintenance issue. The court, in a rare order, has allowed the man to seek separation of the two litigations to expedite the process.
Justice G. S. Sistani allowed Vipul Amar to file an application to request the trial court to hear his divorce matter on merits while the maintenance plea is dealt with separately.
Vipul's case hadn't moved a bit since he filed for divorce from his estranged wife Neeta in October 2006. In March 2007, Neeta had filed an application for maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act following which the divorce case came to a standstill.
Vipul's counsel Jai Bansal alleged that the application for maintenance was made with an apparent intention to slow down the divorce proceedings.
In January this year, the court of justice Sistani noted that the maintenance applications were being used to drag the case and directed the trial court to not give any more extensions to the parties on the pretext of filing of more documents.
"It is made clear that the trial court shall not grant any extension of time to file documents/additional documents," the HC said.
"The trial court will fix a date for hearing of the application, which should be decided within a period of three months from the date, so fixed," the order read.
The trial court rejected Neeta's maintenance plea in May saying that Neeta, who runs a business in south Delhi, is not entitled for any maintenance as she has not approached the "court with clean hands".
The order was challenged by Neeta in the HC, which again brought the proceedings to a halt.
