Family court cannot resolve civil suit: Karnataka high court

Bengaluru: The jurisdiction of a family court cannot extend to resolve a civil suit, the high court has observed.

Extending the family court’s jurisdiction to every title suit involving a challenge to a pedigree would potentially dilute the specialised focus of that forum and overlap with the settled functions of the civil court under the Specific Relief Act, Justice K Manmadha Rao noted in his April 28 order while quashing an order passed by a family court of Bengaluru.

A woman and her two children challenged the order of the family court, passed on Feb 25, 2020, holding that it has jurisdiction to entertain the suit. Originally, one Parvathamma, wife of late JP Narayana Swamy, filed the suit in 2017, seeking a direction that the petitioner woman in the present case is not the legally wedded wife of her husband (Narayana Swamy), and the two children are not his.

In addition, she sought a permanent injunction restraining the petitioners from claiming any rights in the estate of the deceased man and from asserting themselves as his wife and children. However, when the proceedings were pending, Parvathamma died on Feb 24, 2020. Thereafter, two of her relatives joined the litigation in her place. In their challenge to the Feb 25, 2020 order, the woman and her two children argued that the family court lacked jurisdiction to try a suit pertaining to a property dispute.

Justice Manmadha Rao noted that the Family Courts Act is a specialised statute designed to provide a simplified, conciliation-based forum for family-related grievances, and the same cannot be expanded to resolve civil suits. The judge also pointed out that the original plaintiff, Parvathamma and her husband Narayana Swamy are no more and hence the validity of the marriage of the petitioner woman cannot now be looked into in such a scenario.

In the present instance, the challenge is not aimed at resolving a marital friction between spouses, but rather at determining the status of individuals to facilitate claims over the estate of Narayana Swamy. Consequently, the dispute takes on the character of a complex civil litigation, which is traditionally best suited for the adjudication of a civil court, the judge added.

A nuanced distinction must be drawn between a matrimonial case seeking the preservation or dissolution of a marriage and a suit for declaration of legal character intended to settle rights over an estate, Justice Rao observed while quashing the order passed by the family court.

However, liberty has been granted to the two respondents to file afresh a suit, if at all they have any grievance before the competent civil court.