Nandha (NIL) 08 September 2012

What further steps shall be taken?

Dear Ld. Lawyers,

Wife left home with my 18 months old son in my absence 4 months back. While leaving she took all her jewels, threatened my mom with false cases. Later they started making false allegations of domestic violence to our relatives and friends. My wife & father in law told my relatives that i am 'mental' etc. While she left our home, she got a medical certificate from local govt. hospital as if she was hurt. It seems she & her family had planned everything earlier and waited for the right time to execute.

Anyway, we sincerely tried to bring her back with the intervention of elders. But nothing worked out. It seems that they wanted us to land in court so that they can produce the medical certificate as evidence of Domestic Violence and thus claim maintenance from me or file false 498a to extract money & property from me.

Though we are not in a hurry to file any case but that should not go against me. Hence, I have done the following:

1) I made our elders to talk to her and advise to come back. But she denied and is not ready to come. So far no demands have been made by her, except that I should leave back my aged mom.

2) Sent a registered post to her as she did not respond to phone calls. I wrote that "we should set aside our differences for the sake of child's future". She refused to sign the registered post and it came back to me unopened.

3) I have been transferring money to her account via online banking since the day she left home. She did not withdraw any money from the account.

4) Recently, I sent her Money Order for child's expenses, but she did not accept and returned without any comments.

5) In addition to the above, I have taken some policies in my son's name.

Is there anything else that need to be done? please advise.

MY Queries are:

1) Will her refusal to accept my registered post & money order do any favour in maintenace case? Since she is not accepting the money, if I stop sending money to her via online or through money order, will it still amounts to negligence on my part and can she make it a ground?

2) So far I have not gone to my in-laws house in person to see my son as they will surely humiliate me and it might end up in violence as well. Is it mandatory or law says that husband should visit my wife & son whever they are when wife has left matrimonial home on her own and refuses to come back?

3) Shall I ask court for Visitation rights to see my child in a common place without filing RCR or any other case?

4) Should I submit an application in the local police station that my wife decamped with jewels, some cash & items? I do not want the police take any action, but just to inform them to safeguard myself from any false case. Will the police accept such an application? What's such application called in 'police terms? please let me know.

Thanks

Nanda

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3 Replies

Prashant Ghai (Advocate) (PrashantGhai.com) 09 September 2012

First you'll have to see what exactly does she want. If she has a problem with anything, can it be rectified so that she comes back and you all can lead a normal life. You can't involve the court and the police and still expect everything to get normal.

Now talking in the legal aspect. On the face of it, since it appears that your wife left you all of a sudden without any reason and/or sufficient cause, legally you are required to pay her any maintenance. But since she has obtained some flase medical certificates, she might or will use them to support her story of physical abuse by you which forced her to leave you.

So I presume that she will file a case u/s 125 of the Cr.P.C. for maintenance but since you are already sending her the money via various means, you can show the record of the same in the court and if the court is convinced that she is entitled to maintenance, a reasonable amount would be fixed for her and your child. So if you think that she is willing to drag you in court, then you might as well stop depositing money in her account and wait for her to obtain an order from the court to this effect.

It is not mandatory for you to visit her place of residence. If you can try and do that, then good, else it won't do any harm even if you don't go for one reason or the other.

You will have to file a case in the court for legal visitation rights.

You can file an FIR stating that your wife has run away along with the list of articles and you don't know about her whereabouts at that point of time. This sort of a report may not of much help against the kind of cases she might file against you like for maintenance and domestic violence.

Nandha (NIL) 09 September 2012

@ Prashant Ghai

Thanks for your advice. I would like to clarify on the last point. My wife called her brother and she left with him. I dont want to file any FIR that she ran away with jewels etc. I want to just keep on record that my wife had taken the jewels because she might later on claim that she had left behind all the jewels in my home. My mom saw her taking all the jewels from the safe.

Now, my query is, can i file an information report on which the police need not action, but just receive and stamp it.

Please let me know.

Thanks

Nanda

rajiv_lodha (zz) 09 September 2012

Yes, u can file it in the police station as u want. Make 2 necessary points

1) Mention in last line that u do not want any police action to be taken now on this event as it being a family matter, u are trying to sattle it with the help of elders. Letter is for ur kind info n record

2) Meet some higher-up like DSP/SP to explain the matter via personal appearence too