Warring husbands and wives in a matrimonial dispute before a Family Court, have to now personally appear for arriving at a settlement and cannot resort to the provision of appearing through video-conferencing, held the Supreme Court in a significant decision given on Monday.
The Court held that due to video conferencing facility, parties are never present in person and this proves a hindrance to arrive at a settlement. Henceforth, the Court said, a Family Judge will be authorised to order video conferencing of any one of the parties or both only after the parties appear and fail to arrive at a settlement.
The decision has come by way of a 2:1 verdict with Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar giving the majority view and Justice DY Chandrachud dissenting to hold the same view. To protect the sanctity of arriving at a settlement, the majority verdict left it to the judge concerned to even hold the matrimonial dispute trial "in-camera".
On video-conferencing, the two judges said, "After the settlement fails, if the Family Court feels it appropriate having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case that video-conferencing will sub-serve the cause of justice, it may so direct." Justice Chandrachud was of the view that modern means of technology should aid settlement and the higher courts should not restrain Family Courts from exercising this option at any stage of resolving the dispute.