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What happens in court in first hearing?

Assuming you don't have any case filed by either you or wife so far. Then the moment you get the summons for either CrPC 125 or a DV case, things have gone legal, war has been declared, and so you can start preparing on how to fight the cases right then. Or some of you may have already been prepared thanks to reading this book! (patting myself on the back).

Some of the readers may go into a state of shock or disbelief thinking like:

1. "She had said we will go for mutual divorce and that she doesn't want anything from me. What's all this about 50,000 maintenance per month and 5 lakh compensation?"

2. "I am sure she is under bad advice from her cousin."

3. "She is nice. It's only her parents who are influencing her."

4. "I will not give her a penny. She will realize her mistake then and will come back."

5. "I will meet a lawyer and discuss if I can file a divorce case. She will then learn a lesson."

Gentlemen, some of the above may have some value in terms of how valid these statements are in terms of expressing your feelings and emotions, and help in letting a bit of it out of the system. But others like in 2 and 3 are more like escaping from both immediate reality and possibly what's coming up in future. If someone is really nice, do they express that niceness by filing false cases on someone else?

It's time to get prepared about how to find a lawyer, brief him about your strategy and approach, and then watch him either closely or not so closely depending on how much trust you are able to develop over time. Dilly dallying and wishful thinking is not going to help.

In the next chapter, I cover the points on how to find and manager a lawyer. For the purpose of attending the first hearing, it's really simple. The process of law has reached your door, and now as a citizen it's your duty to cooperate with the legal process and put your own story and evidence across so that ends of justice will be met in the end.

What will not happen in court in first hearing

People go with high hopes that they will be able to share their "Mann ki Baat" in front of judge, explain that the whole case is false, that they are carrying a clinching evidence in their bag which once put forth in front of the court, it will be disprove the whole case. Unfortunately, the system of justice works in a very systematic way, where there is no scope for any shortcuts no matter how good the evidence you may have with you. All the evidence and arguments that you may have with you will have to wait till the right time comes.

What needs to be done in first hearing

Engage a lawyer, pay him some basic fees to start with maybe 5K-10K or depending on your needs/negotiation skills and lawyer's needs/negotiation skills. Lawyer will file a vakalatnama in court to represent you as your advocate and do all pleadings and arguments on your behalf.

A sample vakalatnama in PDF form is given here, which is actually more detailed than the ones I have seen before, and seems even more favourable to advocate, in terms of mentioning 3 years timeline of case, and so on. Anyway, rest assured that the vakalatnama cannot absolve lawyer from his professional responsibilities. There are bar council rules and Advocates Act which prescribe standards and norms all advocates have to abide by. Otherwise, in theory at least, even their license to practice can be cancelled.

What does not need to be done in first hearing

Trying to engage with the opposite party/wife about showing her what a mistake she is making, or getting all charged up and emotional and losing cool in the open court. Courts are the places where cold, unemotional people win and the emotional ones may vent some anger or frustration, but that will not help anyone get results from process of law.

Likely things which may happen in first hearing

1. Judge may refer both parties for mediation, and set the next date by when mediation (which usually go for multiple sessions) should be finished and mediator's report sent back to the judge.

2. Judge will ask you/your lawyer and you will get the next date by when you have to file the objections/written statement to wife's application

3. The opponent lawyer will do drama in front of court alleging your cruelty, and how judge should immediately award them some interim maintenance, and so on

So now you know everything what to expect at first hearing!

How to file objections to wife's application?

The standard thing that needs to be done when husbands get summons from court in maintenance/DV case is to file objections. Ok, many a time the case may be sent for mediation, especially if one of the parties strongly expresses desire of rejoining the spouse in matrimonial home. Below is a simple way how to write the objections for each statement in wife's petition. It is always advised to write your own and send it to advocate for review, before taking a print and filing in court.

The standard application/petition by wives is like below:

In the end, her petition says: "I should be given 50,000 p.m maintenance, legal costs, compensation, blah blah blah ."

So your objection /written statement should be like this:

Similarly take each para/point in petition and if something is true, you can accept that and whatever is false you can deny in same format as above.

You must add some of your own points, story, or allegations if you will, from your own written story (covered later in Chapter 8). Later on the same can become part of your evidence/affidavit. This is because if wife makes even false allegations but we don't even state the actual domestic violence at hands of wife what happened; then a presumption may arise in mind of judges that the one who makes allegations might have at least 20% truth in those allegations, but the one who simply denies but has no counter-allegations to make might be the culprit. It's a psychological game so one should not be seen to be coming under any pressure. Alternatively, to take a logical perspective of human psychology behind it: Trying only to defend may not be the right defence. Many lawyers will suggest in beginning to focus only on denial and defending (to steer later towards a compromise/settlement basically), but I tend to disagree because if the cases actually go to evidence and full trial, not having made any allegations in the objection statement may create some disadvantage.

In the end, state that "for the reasons mentioned above, petitioner's petition should be dismissed with exemplary costs, in the interest of justice and equity".

During the objections, one need not give any evidence. But I would not be very strict about "don't disclose any evidence till trial" policy advocated by many. It's not a purely legal game, it's also a psychological game, so if one can create some fear in opponent's minds at the very beginning of the cases by disclosing some tactical evidence; they may feel the same fear and uncertainty that they want you to feel about what's going to happen next. If you can make them believe that you have better evidence with you that's yet to come, this will put them under pressure.

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