Family Courts Act, 1984
Clause (d) of the Explanation to Section 7(1)—Interpretation of jurisdictional clause—Suit, from which dispute germinates, was filed by parents-in-laws against daughter-in-law—A suit or proceeding for an order or injunction in circumstances arising out of a marital relationship would lie exclusively before the Family Court.
Held : What has to be seen is whether the circumstances in which the order or injunction is sought in the present case arise out of a marital relationship. The test is not whether the cause of action, forming the basis of the prayer for injunction, arises out of a marital relationship or whether the marital relationship is the reason for the grievance ventilated by the plaintiff. All that has to been seen are the circumstances in which the injunction is sought. Once the Court identifies the circumstances, if those circumstances arise out of a marital relationship, Clause (d) of the Explanation to Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act would ipso facto be attracted.
Explanation (d) in Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act does not, either expressly or by necessary implication, require the parties to the lis to be husband and wife. Clearly, in so opining, the learned SCJ has effectively re-written the statutory provision. There is nothing in Clause (d) of the explanation to Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act in which indicates that the clause would apply only where the litigation is between husband and wife. For the clause to apply, all that is required is that (i) there is a marital relationship, (ii) the martial relationship has resulted in a certain set of circumstances and (iii) the order or injunction which is sought in the suit is sought in those circumstances.
Applying these tests to the case at hand, if one examines the plaint, and the case set up by the respondents in the plaint, it is clear that the circumstances in which injunction has been sought by them have arisen out of the marital relationship between the petitioner and Pardip. Had the petitioner not married Pardip, she would never had been the daughter-in-law of the respondents, she would never had come to stay in the residence of the respondents, the respondents would never had given her any permissive licence to reside therein, and the entire chiaroscuro of events, which have been emphasised in the plaint by the plaintiffs, to highlight the alleged ignominy and persecution to which petitioner allegedly subjected the respondents, would not be in existence. The fact that the petitioner married the respondents’ son was the foundation of the relationship that emerged between the petitioner and the respondents, and it was in the circumstances which arouse out of that relationship that the entire dispute between the respondents and the petitioner, as per the allegations contained in the plaint, filed by the respondents, arose.
The words “arising out of” have been held, by the Supreme Court, in several decisions, to be words of wide amplitude. One may refer, in this context, to the judgments of the Supreme Court in Renusagar Power Company Ltd. v General Electric Co., 1984 4 SCC 679, Dhanrajmal Govindram v. Shamji Kalidas, AIR 1961 SC 1285 and Doypack Systems Ltd. v. Union of India, 1988 2 SCC 299. In State of Orissa v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 2006 9 SCC 591, the Supreme Court held that the expression “arising out of” is wider in scope than the expression “arising under” and would include maters not only “arising under” but also matters “connected with” the instrument under consideration in that case.
Applying the understanding of the expression “arising out of” as contained in the afore cited decisions of the Supreme Court, it is clear that the circumstances in which the allegedly offending acts of the petitioner, against the respondents, from which the entire dispute in the suit filed by the respondents against the petitioner germinated, arose out of the marital relationship between the petitioner and the respondent.
I deem it necessary to emphasize, in this context, that Clause (d) of the explanation to Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act does not envisage a causal relationship, i.e. a relationship of cause and effect, between the marital relationship and the circumstances in which injunction was sought. All that is required is that the circumstances in which injunction was sought arose out of the marital relationship. A holistic reading of the case set up by the respondents against the plaintiff in suit 12114/2016 clearly indicates that the circumstances in which injunction was sought by the respondents against the petitioner did arise out of the marital relationship between the petitioner and Pardip, the son of the respondents.
That being so, the case squarely falls within Clause (d) of the explanation to Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act.
Clause (d) of the Explanation to Section 7(1)—Interpretation of jurisdictional clause— Suit, from which dispute germinates, was filed by parents-in-laws against daughter-in-law—Family Court being set up to deal with disputes which arise within the structure, and in the context of a marital relationship, the Court, while interpreting the jurisdiction Clause (d) of the explanation to Section 7(1) of the Family Courts Act has to attempt to bring the dispute within the jurisdiction of the Family Court, rather than to exclude the dispute from such jurisdiction
[Para 32]
Jurisprudential Principle
Jurisdiction of Special Courts/Tribunals—Where Special Courts or Tribunals are set up, and disputes regarding jurisdiction arise, the attempt should be to confer jurisdiction on such special Courts or Tribunals, rather than to exclude their jurisdiction.
[Para 31]