AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court on Thursday criticised the authorities concerned of the central government for the delay caused in a petition filed by a woman seeking recovery of maintenance money from her husband, who fled to the US 30 years ago.
The woman, Sonal Patel, had approached the HC in 2017 with prayers that the accrued dues towards court-ordered maintenance from her husband, Jitendra Patel, be recovered by tracing him in the US. During the hearing on Thursday, the central government’s lawyer told the court that he was awaiting instructions from the ministries concerned.
This irked the bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh Shastri and it observed that this was a classic case of delaying the matter and the State, its instrumentalities were not cooperating with the court, and it resulted in the matter being adjourned for want of instruction from the ministries.
The court made it clear that the delay was caused for no fault on the part of the court. “We only hope wisdom will dawn on the officials concerned in furnishing information to the learned advocate,” the court ordered to send a copy of the order to the secretary concerned.
The court posted the next hearing for February 17.
Last year, the high court ordered the Centre to undertake the process of locating the man in the US and recovering the maintenance money due to his wife. In 1997, a court in Ahmedabad had ordered the husband to pay Rs 1.5 lakh per month to his wife since January 16, 1997, because he deserted her in India and fled to the US a few days after their wedding in 1992.
The woman approached the HC for recovery of maintenance money and for contempt of court action against the husband, for not obeying court orders to pay maintenance.
