Delhi High Court sentences woman to 1 month in jail for violating divorce settlement agreement

The Delhi High Court recently sentenced a woman to one month of simple imprisonment for violating the terms of a divorce settlement agreement with her husband and disobeying undertakings given by her to a family court..In an order pronounced on August 9, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora held the woman guilty of contempt of court and also imposed a fine of ₹2000 on her.“In these circumstances, this Court finds that the Respondent is wilfully violating the settlement agreement and acting in breach of the undertaking and therefore, this Court holds the Respondent guilty of the civil contempt under Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. The Respondent has not tendered any apology in her reply and has, to the contrary as noted above, boldly asserted that she is not bound by the settlement agreement and the undertakings given to the Court,” the Court recorded..The Court opined that a penalty of ₹2,000 as fine would not be sufficient to meet the ends of justice. A jail sentence was necessary, the Court said, since the woman had deliberately, wilfully, intentionally and defiantly disobeyed the undertaking given to the Family Court with an intent to enhance her financial settlement with her estranged husband.The judge further observed that such disobedience was despite several opportunities given by the High Court to adhere to the settlement terms. As such, the woman was sentence to one month of jail time. .Justice Arora, however, suspended the sentence for two weeks for the woman to purge the contempt.The Court added that the punishment of imprisonment will be recalled if the woman tenders an unconditional apology and complies with the conditions of the settlement agreement.The Court further cautioned that if the woman does not do this, she will have to surrender before the Registrar General of the Court on August 24 at 2.30 PM.In such a scenario, the Registrar General has been directed to take all steps to send the woman to Central Jail, Tihar at New Delhi so that she undergoes her prison sentence. “The Respondent is directed to appear on 11.08.2023 before the Registrar General to furnish a security bond of ₹ 50,000/- and a surety of the like amount for her surrender," the Court added. .The Court was dealing with a contempt case filed by a man against his estranged wife.The man told the Court that the couple had got married in July 2015 but have been living separately since April 2017, and that there were now about 20 legal proceedings pending between them.The couple eventually entered into a settlement agreement and, on September 14, 2022, they undertook to abide by its terms and conditions. Notably, it was agreed that the husband would execute a gift deed relating to a flat in Mumbai. It was also agreed that the wife would handover to the husband a cheque of ₹ 9,91,408/- towards the closure of a loan account maintained with HSBC Bank and that she would procure the original title deeds of certain property from the said bank..However, disputes arose between the parties with respect to the procurement of certain ancillary documents from a housing society where the property is located. .The wife is stated to have insisted on getting these documents from the housing society, and intimated that she was unwilling to accept the execution of the gift deed without these documents. The managing committee of the housing society, however, was unwilling to provide any information or documents to either of the parties unless the maintenance dues of the society were cleared..Meanwhile, the husband claimed that, as per the agreement, the wife has to make the payment of these maintenance dues. As such, he contended that the non-execution of the gift deed, even after its finalisation, was a wilful violation of the terms and conditions of the agreement between the parties.After considering the case, the High Court concluded that the wife has reneged from the settlement agreement and held her guilty of contempt..Advocates Prabhjit Jauhar, Rosemary Raju, Gauri Rajput and Ajunee Singh appeared for the husband (petitioner).The wife was represented by Advocates Zeba Khair with Nikita Jain. .[Read Order]