VIJAY JAGDISH CHHEDA Vs. DIMPLE VIJAY CHHEDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition is filed by the petitioner, being dissatisfied by the judgment and order passed by the learned Family Court No.2, Pune on 21/9/2017 on an application at Exh.40 in P.A. No. 931/2016. By the said impugned order, the application preferred by the respondent on the ground of nonpayment of court fees as required under the provisions of the Maharashtra Court Fees Act was treated as inquiry under section 8 and direction was issued to the present petitioner to pay full advalorem court fees on the said amount.

(2.) In order to test the impugned order, it is necessary to cull out certain facts leading to the passing of impugned order. The petitioner before this Court is the husband and his marriage was solemnized with the respondent on 15/10/1995. The respondent wife filed a petition seeking dissolution of marriage, which came to be numbered as PA 931/2016. According to the petitioner, during subsistence of the marriage, a joint account came to be opened by the petitioner and the respondent in HDFC Bank bearing Savings Bank Account No. 0103000058319 along with the mother of the petitioner.

(3.) The petitioner is represented by the learned Senior Counsel Shri Anturkar and the respondent is represented by Shri Abhijeet Sarwate. The learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner would invite the attention of this Court to the application preferred by the petitioner and to the prayers made in the application seeking retransfer of the amount of Rs.3,79,50,807/ from the account of the Axis Bank to the joint account of the petitioner/respondent, namely, the HDFC Bank, Ferguson College Road, Branch Pune. The learned counsel would submit that the said application did not seek any "substantive relief" and in fact the said application has been preferred as an application for interim relief in a petition filed under the Hindu Marriage Act and what has been sought by the said application is restoration of the statusquo ante, which is a prayer and relief only in an aid and assistance of the Family Court to pass a substantive relief under the Hindu Marriage Act at the time of final hearing. He would submit that if an application seeking monetary relief at an interim stage are treated as applications within meaning of Article 7 of Schedule 1 of the Maharashtra Court Fees Act, it would result into disastrous consequences. The learned counsel Mr. Anturkar would submit that the words used in Statute are to be construed with reference to the context in which they have been put to use and it should not be permitted to be read in the manner which would defeat the purpose of the Statute and the intention of the legislature. The learned counsel would submit that by the application presented before the Family Court, what he sought was restoration of money into the joint account which was already in existence and intended to be maintained for the welfare of the children and it was the respondentwife who had transferred the amount from the said account to her individual account and, therefore, he has only sought directions to revert the money to the original account in which it was deposited. The learned counsel would submit that, he in any case is not claiming any money and therefore he is not seeking any substantive relief but the relief was sought only by way of interim measure and he had thought it fit to file the proceedings in the Family Court, since the wife had already instituted proceedings for divorce in the same court. Ultimately, according to him, at the most if the application would have been allowed, he would have been entitled only for retransfer of the amount, which is quite distinct from he claiming the money by filing a suit.