Supreme Court of India Justice Kurian Joseph on Saturday said that fundamental duty of family courts is to promote conciliation and settlement of disputes adding that expeditious disposal must be a secondary matter.
Speaking at the 1st National Meet for Sensitization of Family court matters organised at Judicial Academy in Ranchi, he said family court judges should try to mend the disputes within a family adding they should either mend or end the marriages.
It may be noted here the judges of high courts and family courts from across the country took part in the day-long national meet held to deliberate on various themes including judicial roles, reconciliation and resettlement culture and understanding conflicts in relationship.
Justice Joseph stated judges must not focus on disposal of cases adding they should always bear in mind that their decision will affect a life. He added that family court matters are not an ordinary course of adjudication on basis of available materials. The endeavour of family court must be to protect the institution of marriage.
He said family is foundation of our culture. If there is peace in a family there will be peace in the surroundings and the society.
He observed that family disputes vary from person to person and localities to localities and State to State. He asked the participants to discuss the reasons why the family disputes is high in love marriages and among the educated people.
Supreme Court judge Indira Banerjee stated family is very important for human being adding that disputes relating to it must be handled sensitively.
She said family matters involve lot of emotion adding this makes the case more complex. While pointing out the changes taking place in society due to various reasons including increasing number of working women, changes taking place in our traditional views, she said the judges must be alive to the situation.
She stressed on finding the real reason for the disputes and see whether it could be reconciled or not.
Chief justice of Jharkhand High Court Justice Aniruddha Bose stated that family courts has special facets where the disputes are handled with warm humanity keeping the law in view.
He stated that number of family disputes coming to the court is ever increasing opining that it is mainly because the disputes redressal mechanism in the society, mohalla and family is disappearing.
He observed that judges have to be futuristic adding new types of relationship like surrogate birth, live-in relationship and same gender marriages is coming up adding it is possible that cases related to them would start dominating family court matters in the future. We need to prepare ourselves for the future, he stated.
Welcoming the guests, Justice DN Patel of Jharkhand High Court stated that there was significant improvement in disposal of family court cases across the country. Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh extended the vote of thanks. He pointed out that number of pending cases in family courts of Jharkhand has come down from 13,000 to 9,300 in past two years.