Karnataka HC Rejects Husband’s Bid to Move Wife’s Vijayapura Case to Bagalkot, Says His Travel Inconvenience Is No Ground

In brief

The question

Whether the husband’s travel, employment, and family-care responsibilities constituted sufficient grounds to transfer the wife’s pending proceeding from Vijayapura to Bagalkot.

The court held

The Court answered the transfer question in the negative, holding that the husband had shown no sufficient ground to transfer Crl. Misc. No. 657/2025 from the Family Court, Vijayapura, to the Family Court, Bagalkot.

It also directed

The criminal petition was dismissed.

01Facts

The husband, a government employee residing in Bagalkot, sought under Section 447 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), to transfer Crl. Misc. No. 657/2025 from the Family Court, Vijayapura, to the Family Court, Bagalkot.

¶ 2

He relied on the distance between the two cities, his employment, and his responsibilities for his three children and elderly mother. His divorce petition was already pending before the Family Court, Bagalkot.

¶ 2

The wife, who resided in Vijayapura, opposed the transfer, arguing that the husband’s inconvenience was insufficient grounds.

¶ 2–4

The High Court noted that both parties’ residences and the husband’s employment were undisputed.

¶ 5

02Issues

i.Whether the husband’s travel, employment, and family-care responsibilities constituted sufficient grounds to transfer the wife’s pending proceeding from Vijayapura to Bagalkot.

¶ 3–5, 10

ii.Whether the transfer should be granted in light of the wife’s residence in Vijayapura and the circumstances of the matrimonial dispute.

¶ 5, 8–10

03Law Applied

The Court considered Section 447 of the BNSS, under which the husband sought transfer, and referred to a coordinate Bench decision concerning a similar transfer petition brought under Section 407 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and Section 447 of the BNSS.

¶ 2, 6–10

It also considered a coordinate Bench decision stating that transfer should not follow merely because the applicant is a woman; all attending facts and circumstances must be assessed.

¶ 6–10

The Court applied the principle that inconvenience to either party, by itself, is not sufficient to warrant transfer, while stating that in matrimonial disputes the wife’s interests should be primarily considered.

¶ 6–10

Provisions in the judgment · 2 · Linked ones open on LawLens

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 Section 447

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 Section 407

04Reasoning

The Court accepted that the husband lived and worked in Bagalkot and that the wife lived in Vijayapura, but held that the husband’s travel and other asserted responsibilities did not establish sufficient grounds for transfer.

¶ 5–10

It found the facts comparable to a prior decision dismissing a husband’s transfer petition and read the coordinate Bench’s gender-neutrality observations as requiring consideration of all circumstances—not automatic transfer based on the applicant’s gender.

¶ 5–10

Given the wife’s residence in Vijayapura and the matrimonial context, the Court concluded that the husband’s inconvenience did not justify moving the proceeding to Bagalkot.

¶ 5–10