MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently suggested the Bar Council of India (BCI) to frame guidelines for advocates to follow while resolving matrimonial disputes. A bench comprising Justices V Bhavani Subbaroyan and KK Ramakrishnan made the suggestion while dismissing an appeal filed by a woman to set aside an order passed by the Family Court in Madurai dissolving her marriage in 2021.
The marriage between the woman and her husband was solemnised in 2009 and the couple had a daughter. However, they got estranged and lodged criminal complaints against each other. The woman alleged domestic violence and dowry harassment, and her husband claimed that her relatives murdered his father and injured him and his mother. While the husband later filed a divorce application before the Family Court, his wife filed an application seeking restitution of conjugal rights. The former was allowed and the latter was dismissed by the Family Court, challenging which the wife filed the appeal.
Hearing the appeal, the judges noted that the above matrimonial dispute was aggravated by the false criminal complaints the couple made against each other, one of which had been drafted by an advocate. The judges criticised that the said advocate's action went not only beyond professional ethics, but also against the legitimately expected professional conduct from the advocate community to resolve the matrimonial dispute.
"The duty of the advocate in these types of matters is not to blow the incident out of proportion and thereby cause turbulence to the matrimonial life. The legal profession is for resolving the controversies between parties in the case of matrimonial dispute. The advocate should try to make the marriage and not to break it," the judges observed. Holding that the woman's offer to reunite with her husband does not seem genuine, the judges upheld the lower court's order, after recording the man's willingness to bear the educational and monthly expenses of their daughter.
To avoid a repeat of such incidents involving advocates, the judges suggested BCI to frame some guidelines for advocates to follow while handling matrimonial cases. A point that was repeatedly stressed by the judges in their suggestions is that advocates should never advise their clients to rope in unconnected family members as accused in criminal complaints and should try to encourage the parties to settle the issue amicably.
"If any advocate does anything unprofessional and unethical while drafting complaints or filing cases and if it comes to the notice of the Bar Council, severe action should be taken," they warned.