Omar Abdullah goes to Supreme Court to expedite divorce case

NEW DELHI: As his matrimonial dispute lingers in the Delhi high court, allegedly because his wife’s advocate is not consenting to video-conferencing proceedings, former J&K CM Omar Abdullah moved the Supreme Court challenging an HC circular mandating that both parties in a case need to agree for hearing via remote mode.
Agreeing to hear his plea, a bench of CJI S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notice.It, however, refused the plea for early hearing and said the matter would be taken up in due course. Omar approached the SC after the Delhi HC refused to give relief and dismissed his plea against its circular saying lack of cooperation of his estranged wife, Payal, was not a ground for challenging the court’s April 26 order.

Omar contended that his matrimonial appeal against a 2016 trial court order dismissing his divorce petition has not been listed for final hearing since February 2017. It was not taken up during the restricted functioning of the courts in view of Covid-19 pandemic as his estranged wife’s lawyer did not give consent to virtual proceedings. Omar had moved an application seeking early hearing of his appeal in July last year.
The HC had declined to entertain it, saying a request for final hearing of pending matters will be entertained only if both the parties agree. On August 30, 2016, the trial court had dismissed Omar’s plea seeking divorce, saying he had failed to prove irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.