The Delhi High Court recently sentenced one month of simple imprisonment to a woman for violating the terms of a divorce settlement agreement with her husband and also disobeying undertakings given by her to a family court.
In an order pronounced on August 9, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora held the woman guilty of contempt of court and thus also imposed a fine of Rs. 2000.
The Court further recorded, “In these circumstances, this Court finds that the Respondent is wilfully violating the settlement agreement and acting in breach of the undertaking, and therefore, this Court holds the Respondent guilty of the civil contempt under Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. The Respondent has not tendered any apology in her reply and has, to the contrary as noted above, boldly asserted that she is not bound by the settlement agreement and the undertakings given to the Court.”
The Court also opined that a penalty of Rs. 2000 as a fine would not be sufficient to meet the ends of justice.
Hence, a jail sentence was necessary, the Court said, since the woman had deliberately, intentionally, and defiantly disobeyed the undertaking given to the Family Court to enhance her financial settlement with her estranged husband.
The judge observed that such disobedience was despite many opportunities were given by the High Court to comply with the settlement terms. Failing to which, the woman was sentenced to one month of jail time.
Justice Arora, however, suspended the sentence for two weeks for the woman to purge the contempt.
The Court also added that the punishment of imprisonment will be recalled if the woman agrees to tender an unconditional apology and complies with all the terms and conditions of the settlement agreement.
The Court further cautioned that if the woman does not tender an apology, she is bound to surrender before the Registrar General of the Court on August 24 at 2.30 PM.
In that scenario, the Registrar General has been directed to follow all the steps to send the woman to Central Jail, Tihar at New Delhi so that she can undergo her prison sentence.
The Court added, “The Respondent is directed to appear on 11.08.2023 before the Registrar General to furnish a security bond of ₹ 50,000/- and a surety of the like amount for her surrender.”
The Court ordered it when it was dealing with a contempt case filed by a man against his estranged wife.
The man told the Court that the couple had tied knot in July 2015 but have been residing separately since April 2017, and that there were now about 20 legal proceedings pending between them.
The couple eventually came into a settlement agreement and, on September 14, 2022, they underlook to comply its terms and conditions.
It was also agreed that the husband would execute a gift deed relating to a flat in Mumbai. It was also agreed that the wife would give her husband a cheque of Rs. 9,91,408/ towards the closure of a loan amount maintained with HSBC Bank and that she would procure the original title deeds of certain properties from the said bank.
However, disputes arose between the parties related to the procurement of certain ancillary documents from a housing society where the property is located.
The wife is stated to have insisted on obtaining these documents from the housing society and intimated that she was unwilling to accept the execution of the gift deed without the aforementioned documents.
The managing committee of the housing society, however, was not willing to give any information or documents to either of the parties unless the maintenance dues of the society were cleared.
Meanwhile, the husband claimed that, according to the agreement, the wife has liable to make the payment of these maintenance dues.
As such, he contended that the non-execution of the gift deed, even after its finalisation, was a deliberate violation of the terms and conditions of the agreement between the parties.
Post consideration of the case, the High Court concluded that the wife has reneged from the settlement agreement, and hence found her guilty of contempt.
Advocates Prabhjit Jauhar, Rosemary Raju, Ajunee Singh, and Gauri Rajpur represented the petitioner (husband).
Advocate Zeba Khair with advocate Nikita Jain represented the wife.
Source: https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/delhi-high-court-sentences-woman-1-month-jail-violating-divorce-settlement-agreement