Family Court orders passed without considering objections or giving reasons must be set aside.

In M.C. No. 317/2019, the Family Court had directed the husband to bear educational expenses and the wife to bear miscellaneous expenses.

The wife filed a memo calculating the educational expenses allegedly unpaid by the husband; the husband filed objections disputing that the claimed expenses were educational expenses. The Family Court directed payment without addressing those objections.

The wife also sought permission to file a counterclaim through I.A. No. 7. The Family Court allowed the application on the footing that the husband had filed no objections, although he maintained that he had done so. The husband challenged both orders under Article 227 of the Constitution.

Article 227 of the Constitution provides the High Court with supervisory jurisdiction over subordinate courts.

In exercising that jurisdiction, the Court required the Family Court to consider the parties’ objections and give reasons when deciding the disputed calculation memo and I.A. No. 7.

The judgment referred to Rajnesh v. Neha, (2021) 2 SCC 324, noting that the Family Court had extracted part of that decision, but it did not derive or apply a separate substantive rule from that precedent.

The High Court found that the Family Court had not considered the husband’s objections to the calculation memo and had given no reasons for its direction to pay, beyond extracting part of Rajnesh v. Neha.

As to I.A. No. 7, the Family Court recorded that no objections had been filed, while the husband asserted that he had filed them; the High Court concluded that the order likewise required reconsideration.

It therefore set aside both orders and remanded the matters without expressing any view on their merits.

It expressly left the merits open.