Lawyers Shouldn’t Exacerbate Marital Disputes: Madras High Court Requests That BCI Create Standards
Last Updated on November 14, 2024 by Arti Kumari
The Madras High Court has noted that lawyers should avoid “adding fuel to fire” when defending parties in divorce proceedings.
An affidavit written by a counsel further ‘inflamed’ the problems between a separated couple, according to a bench of Justices Bhavani Subbaroyan and KK Ramakrishnan.
The Court voiced its disapproval of the lawyer’s actions and added that in these situations, advocates should work to preserve marriages rather than destroy them.
In these kinds of cases, the advocate’s responsibility is to avoid exaggerating the situation and upsetting the marriage. The purpose of the legal profession is to settle disputes between parties in marriage cases. The purpose of the legal profession is to settle disputes between parties in marriage cases. Instead of trying to end the marriage, the advocate should work to keep it together. Instead of destroying, the advocate ought to be a builder. The Court stated that the advocate shouldn’t engage in spoil sport.
In order to help lawyers concentrate more on settling matrimonial conflicts rather than escalating them or dissolving marriages, it went on to lay out some instructive suggestions.
In order for members of the bar to settle matrimonial disputes without “adding fuel to fire,” the Court further requested that the Bar Council of India (BCI) create guidelines along similar lines.
The following are the rules that the Court recommended:
- When parties ask advocates for assistance, they should always act ethically.
- The parties should never be misled by advocates.
- In order to accuse people who have no connection whatsoever to the purported incident, advocates should never offer unethical counsel.
- Given that it concerns the lives of two people, or more accurately, a family, advocates should listen to the client and attempt to suggest that an amicable settlement be pursued.
- In order to provide the party with appropriate advice, advocates can get a report and the assistance of a certified counselor.
- Advocates should obtain written instructions from the client on the claimed instances.
A lady was appealing a family court’s decision to grant her husband’s divorce plea while rejecting her request for the restoration of her conjugal privileges.
In 2009, the couple tied the knot. But subsequently, their relationship soured, purportedly as a result of the wife pressuring her father-in-law to divide up the land. In addition to neglecting their child, the husband said she regularly threatened suicide.
His wife refuted the accusations, stating that the brutality she experienced in the marital home was the primary reason she was compelled to leave. She opposed the husband’s request for a divorce and hoped to save their union.
The husband’s father was killed and he and his mother were injured when the wife’s relatives attacked the husband’s family while the divorce case was still ongoing in the family court.
The husband said that there was no possibility of a reunion with his wife under these circumstances. His position was deemed valid by the family court, which awarded him a divorce.
The High Court concurred that the marriage had failed when the wife contested this order.
“It would be inhumane to ask him to forget the past as a bad dream, to live with her, and to maintain a conducive matrimonial home when there is an allegation of the husband’s father being intentionally murdered under his nose and he and his mother also suffered severe injuries during the intervention,” the Court stated.
The Court further observed that the wife initiated a criminal case accusing her husband and her in-laws of cruelty after he entered the divorce plea, which resulted in an acquittal. The Court determined that the woman’s actions had irreparably damaged her marriage before rejecting her appeals.
Case Citation- C.M.A(MD)Nos.65 & 66 of 2024
