Divorce over phone is invalid: Mumbai court

In a relief for a Sewree-based woman whose husband had divorced her over the phone, a metropolitan court on Thursday ruled that the divorce is not valid. The court, which was hearing the domestic violence case filed by the woman, also directed the husband, a Muslim civil engineer, to pay her ₹1 lakh as compensation, apart from a monthly maintenance of ₹10,000.

The woman had approached the Dadar metropolitan court in October 2014 — three months after her husband ‘divorced’ her over the phone following multiple police complaints filed by the two sides against each other. She had also filed a non-cognisable report and an FIR in 2014, claiming her husband and in-laws beat her and demanded money. The husband had in July 2014 submitted the talaqnama in his defence and claimed to have issued a cheque of ₹9,000 to her for iddat (the period of waiting a woman observes after divorce).

On Thursday, magistrate VB Bohra, however, observed that: “The contention of [her in-laws] that she was insisting for divorce also can’t be considered. On the contrary, it appears that [he] was in a hurry to give divorced.”

The court held that the in-laws “failed to prove the fact of giving talaqnama either through phone [or the document]”. The payment of iddat was also not proved. “After marriage, more particularly after having children, a woman doesn’t leave her husband unless in compelling circumstances,” the court noted while granting compensation to the woman.