This story is from February where the Allahabad High Court expressed displeasure over the habit of the women’s parents to approach the Mediation Center just to receive the amount that the husband/applicant deposits instead of going there to settle their matrimonial disputes.

In this case, the husband (Faraz Hasan) approached the High Court seeking pre-arrest bail in a case registered against him u/s 498A, 308, 323 of IPC r/w Section 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

The applicant’s counsel submitted that since the case is a matrimonial dispute, it should be referred to the Mediation Center of the Allahabad High Court.

The court directed the husband to deposit Rs 50000 with the mediation center which would be released to the wife only after the mediation process is over.

However, the court noted that wife’s parents were coming in for mediation only to receive the amount deposited by the husband/applicant. Therefore, the court released some guidelines and ordered the parties to follow the same:

1. If parents of the woman approach the Mediation Center only on one date and say they are not interested or if they have not attended previous dates without proper reasons, then they will only get 50% of the amount deposited and the rest will go to the husband/applicant.
2. If parties attend mediation more than two times then they will get the entire amount.
3. If despite notice to the wife and parents, they don’t appear, the entire amount will be refunded to the husband/applicant.
4. If the applicant/husband does not deposit the amount or fails to participate in mediation after depositing the amount, then the amount would be fortified in the Mediation Center’s account and will be remitted to the concerned court.

Accordingly, the Bench remitted the matter back to the Mediation Center and directed that no coercive action should be taken against the applicant(husband).