Mumbai: Twenty-eight years after being refused maintenance in a domestic dispute case, a woman recently filed an appeal in family court and sought to explain the delay, which the Bombay High Court has refused to condone. Dismissing the appeal, a division bench of Justices BP Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan on December 21 said that the 'explanation is absolutely no explanation for condoning such a huge delay.'
The woman's advocate Dhruti Kapadia argued that she was unaware of her husband's whereabouts all these years and has been staying on rent since the divorce. Kapadia further argued that the woman was ignorant and her divorce lawyer had not educated her about maintenance, rights and further legal course of action.
The woman also contended that she was in a complete state of trauma and stress with her husband allegedly threatening to kill her and her daughter. She also claimed that there was a robbery at her place and she did not have money to appoint a lawyer and file an appeal against the order of 1994.
Police Unable To Trace Her Husband, Says Woman
She claimed that the police were unable to trace her former husband and she herself traced him recently in the United States, where he works as a director for a company, following which she filed the appeal and sought to condone the detail.
Senior advocate Girish Godbole, appearing for the man, opposed the application, saying that the woman was aware of his whereabouts since May 2015, when she sent an email to his employer in the US. "In these circumstances, we find that there is no sufficient cause made out for condoning such a huge delay," the bench said while dismissing the plea.
