- (1.) Applicant-Wife, by way of present transfer application under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure, seeks transfer of a petition under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short 'HM Act') filed by the respondent-husband from Nawanshahr (SBS Nagar) to Bathinda. Notice of motion was issued and in the meantime, further proceedings before the learned trial Court were stayed. Reply on behalf of the respondent filed in the Court today, is taken on record and copy thereof has been supplied to learned counsel for the applicant.
(2.) Heard learned counsel for the parties. It has gone undisputed before this Court that there is a child out of this wedlock. Applicant-wife, along with her minor child, is living with her parents at Bathinda. Neither the applicant-wife is having any regular source of income nor the respondent-husband is paying any amount of maintenance either for the applicant-wife or for the child. Distance between Bathinda and Nawanshahr (SBS Nagar) is more than 200 kilometers. Although, learned counsel for the respondent could not deny the abovesaid factual aspect of the matter, yet to oppose the instant transfer application, he placed reliance on two judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in N.K. Nair and another Vs. Kavanugal Aanattu Radhika, 2005 13 SCC 439 and Jitendra Singh Vs. Bhanu Kumari and others, 2009 1 SCC 130 , to contend that it is not always mandatory to accept the transfer applications, filed at the instance of the wife. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and careful perusal of the record of the case, this Court is of the considered opinion that instant transfer application deserves to be allowed. It is so said because responsibility of the wife for bringing up the child, her financial status, source of income, conduct of the respondent-husband while not paying the amount of maintenance either for the applicant-wife or for the child and distance between two places, besides the convenience of the wife, are some of the relevant considerations for deciding the transfer applications, like the present one.
(3.) So far as the abovesaid judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court relied upon by learned counsel for the respondent are concerned, there is no dispute about the observations made therein. However, a close perusal of the cited judgments would show that none of them is of any help to the respondent, these being distinguishable on facts. It is the settled proposition of law that peculiar facts and circumstances of each case are to be examined, considered and appreciated first before applying any codified or judgemade law thereto. Sometimes, difference of even one additional fact or circumstance can make the world of difference, as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Padmausundra Rao and another Vs. State of Tamil Nadu and others, 2002 3 SCC 533 . Further, the abovesaid view taken by this Court on ordering the transfer of the petition under Section 9 of the HM Act filed by the respondent-husband from Nawanshahr (SBS Nagar) to Bathinda, is supported by the following judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, as well as different High Courts, including this Court: - 1. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi and another Vs. Rani Jethmalani, 1979 AIR(SC) 468 . 2. Subramaniam Swamy Vs. Ramakrishna Hegde, 1990 1 SCC 4 . 3. Neelam Kanwar Vs. Devinder Singh Kanwar, 2000 10 SCC 589 . 4. Sumita Singh Vs. Kumar Sanjay and another, 2002 AIR(SC) 396 . 5. Mangla Patil Kale Vs. Sanjeev Kumar Kale, 2003 10 SCC 280 . 6. Fatema Vs. Jafri Syed Husain @ Syed Parvez Jafferi, 2009 AIR(SC) 1773 . 7. Anjali Ashok Sadhwani Vs. Ashok Kishinchand Sadhwani, 2009 AIR(SC) 1374 . 8. Kulwinder Kaur @ Kulwinder Gurcharan Singh Vs. Kandi Friends Education Trust and others, 2008 AIR(SC) 1333 . 9. Nisha Vs. Dharmenda Pratap Singh Rathore, 2015 3 AllLJ 168 . 10. M.V. Rekha Vs. Sathya, 2011 2 HinduLR 34 . 11. Sneha Vs. Vinayak, 2013 ILR(Kar) 165 . 12. Rimpal Vs. Balinder Kumar, 2010 7 RCR(Civ) 286 . 13. Anju Vs. Sanjay, 2011 6 RCR(Civ) 112 . 14. Komal Devi @ Komal Kumari @ Komal Rani Vs. Harbhajan Singh, 2012 8 RCR(Civ) 84;