1 WP.4462/2010 mnm IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO. 4462 OF 2010 Arunava Mitra ...Petitioner Vs. Priadarshini Mitra & Anr. ...Respondents Mr. Milind Desaid i/b. Mr. M.M. Merchant for the Petitioner/Applicant Mrs. Vaishali Thorat a/w. Ms. Minakshi Surve for Respondent No.1 None for the Respondent State. CORAM : SMT. ROSHAN DALVI, J. DATED : 19TH NOVEMBER, 2010 P.C. : 1. Rule. Rule returnable forthwith. 2. The Writ Petition challenges the orders of the Family Court dated 7th August 2009 and 11th March 2010. The initial order was passed for ad-interim relief given to the Respondent wife and children in the matrimonial home of the wife directing the Petitioner husband to maintain status-quo regarding his possession of the matrimonial home. On 7th August 2009 the status-quo was that the husband had been residing with his mother in a rented two bedroom flat in the same locality where the matrimonial home is situate. The husband wanted to enter upon the house. The wife resisted that entry. 2 WP.4462/2010 3. Thereafter parties filed their affidavits. The interim order came to be passed in the same Petition by the same Court upon considering their respective cases. The Court essentially considered the wife’s right to stay peacefully in her matrimonial home. The Court also considered the joint ownership of both the parties in the matrimonial home. 4. The parties have been married since 1994. They have two issues. It is only in April 2009 that the Petitioner husband desired to divorce the wife. He has sent her certain consent terms for filing a petition under Section 13B of the Hindu Marriage Act for divorce by mutual consent. The wife has not consented to the terms in the consent terms. It appears that the parties have had disputes since then. 5. The husband lived in a nuclear family with his wife and children. That was their matrimonial home. After the death of his father the husband desired to bring his mother in the matrimonial home. That would have been a reasonable and just act, but for the fact that the parties had disputes well prior thereto and the husband himself had sent consent terms to his wife prior to his father’s death. 6. Due to the disputes the wife applied for injunction. It would have to be seen on evidence whether due to the disputes the husband 3 WP.4462/2010 had moved out coincidently only a little prior to the wife obtaining the injunction. The fact remains that admittedly since April the husband wanted to divorce his wife; he had sent consent terms to the wife. The wife had not accepted those terms and the divorce petition had not been filed for mutual consent. The fact remains that only then his mother was sought to be inducted into the house. Oral evidence would show whether the application for injunction was genuine and bona fide or whether it was made for any ulterior purpose. However on these facts the learned Family Court Judge had granted the injunction. 7. The husband would be entitled to divorce his wife by mutual consent or otherwise provided he pays her permanent alimony and maintenance as also the residence according to the circumstances in which the parties lived and as per the station in life which the parties enjoyed during the 15 years that the marriage had subsisted. The husband would be entitled to enter upon the house provided he provides for his wife and children in any other alternative premises in the same locality or of the same standard. 8. The husband who is present in Court states to Court that he is agreeable to have amicable resolution of his dispute by offering a reasonable settlement to his wife. 9. The orders passed by the Family Court need not be interfered 4 WP.4462/2010 with. 10.The Writ Petition is dismissed. Rule discharged. 11.The C.A No.2449/2010 is also disposed off as infructuous. 12.The husband shall be entitled to make any fresh offer for permanent resolution of his dispute to the wife or her Advocate in the Family Court. (SMT. ROSHAN DALVI, J.)