Delhi HC dismisses woman's contempt plea against estranged husband, imposes Rs 50K costs on her

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed with Rs 50,000 costs a woman's  plea seeking contempt action against her estranged husband for allegedly violating the conditions of availing visitation rights to meet their children.

A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Renu Bhatnagar said there was no merit in the contempt petition and held that it was the woman and other persons accompanying her who were instigating the husband.

The woman in her plea claimed that the trial court, in October 2023, had directed that the man should not be accompanied by his parents or anyone else or take photographs or videos of his meeting with the children. But the man started making videos and taking photographs without permission.

In November 2023, the high court had said that the man, along with his parents, was entitled to a visitation with her children on the occasion of Diwali in the woman's office.

The woman claimed when the man reached the venue of visitation, he intentionally disturbed her, her family members and her employers with the sole aim of shattering her confidence, curb her source of living by trying to get her fired from work and reduce her existence to mere groveling.

As the video clips recorded at the behest of the woman were not filed along with the petition, the bench asked her to show it to them on her laptop.

"On watching the video, it is our considered opinion that in fact, it was the petitioner (woman) and persons along with her who were instigating the respondent no. 1 (man) into reacting in the way he did.

"We further find that the respondent no. 1 was accompanied by his parents, that is, the respondent no. 2 and 3, of which, we have been informed that the respondent no. 3 has unfortunately passed away on February 12, 2025," the bench said in its March 28 order.

The court said it has noticed in the video that the man's parents even tried to request the persons accompanying the petitioner not to mock the man and to allow the visitation to take place peacefully.

However, this request, as is apparent from the video, was again mocked at, it said.

The court directed that out of Rs 50,000 costs, the woman should pay Rs 25,000 to the man and the remaining Rs 25,000 be deposited with the Delhi High Court Advocates Welfare Fund within four weeks.

The woman claimed that her office space was not available on Diwali so she had arranged for a private conference room 'in her other office' and had informed the man about the booking of the venue for the visitation and asked him to bear the cost.

To this, the bench said there was no direction of the court for the man to bear the cost of the venue.

"In fact, this court, in its order dated November 9, 2023, allowed the visitation of the children with the man along with his parents at the office of the woman, without stipulating any cost to be borne by him," it said.