Husband sues to force wife back home. She asks to move the case. He doesn't show up.

Her husband filed a case demanding she return to live with him. She asked the Supreme Court to move it closer to her home. He never showed up to oppose it.

On 27 July 2023, a woman named Poonam Pawar walked into the Supreme Court of India with a simple request: move her husband's case from a courtroom in Silvassa to one in Ahmedabad, where she lived. Her husband, Ankur Pawar, had filed a petition under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act — a legal demand for "restitution of conjugal rights," which is essentially a court order asking a spouse to return to the marital home. Poonam said she couldn't afford the travel or the risk. The husband was served notice. He chose not to appear. The courtroom fell silent when his name was called and no one answered. The court had to decide: does ignoring a conjugal rights case make it go away?

When the husband filed his demand

Ankur Pawar walked into the District Court of Dadra & Nagar Haveli in Silvassa. He filed Hindu Marriage Petition No. 01/2023. His weapon was Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — a provision that allows one spouse to ask a court to order the other spouse to resume living together. It is not a divorce. It is not a maintenance claim. It is a civil demand: come back home.

For Poonam, that demand came with a geography problem. She lived in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The court was in Silvassa, a Union Territory roughly 400 kilometres away — a distance that meant hours of travel, time, money, and risk. She decided to fight the case not on its merits but on its location. She filed a transfer petition under Section 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure (a legal tool that lets a party ask a higher court to move a case from one court to another for convenience or fairness). Her petition, numbered Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 973 of 2023, now lay before a bench of the Supreme Court.

The husband's silence

Here is where the case turns. The Supreme Court issued notice to Ankur Pawar. The court papers were served — a thin bundle of legal documents that arrived at his address, stamped with the Supreme Court's seal. He knew the date. He knew the stakes. He did not show up.

In most legal disputes, a party who fails to appear risks an ex parte order (a decision made by hearing only one side). But this was not a routine property dispute. This was a conjugal rights case — a proceeding that touches the most intimate sphere of a person's life. The husband's absence forced the court to ask a deeper question: what does it mean when one spouse simply refuses to engage with a case that demands the other spouse's return?

The bench — Justice C.T. Ravikumar and Justice Sanjay Kumar — did not just rubber-stamp the transfer. They examined the legal consequences of the husband's non-appearance. They found their answer in Order XXI Rule 32 of the Code of Civil Procedure (a rule that deals with how courts enforce decrees for restitution of conjugal rights).

Under this rule, if a court passes a decree ordering a spouse to return to the marital home and that spouse refuses, the court can attach their property or even detain them in civil prison. It is a serious enforcement mechanism. The Supreme Court noted that the husband's decision to skip the hearing did not make the case harmless. The court held that "non-participation in a restitution proceeding carries civil consequences as evident from Order XXI Rule 32 CPC" — consequences that could affect Poonam directly if the case proceeded in Silvassa without her.

The distance and the order

The court weighed two things together: the distance between Silvassa and Ahmedabad — roughly 400 kilometres of road — and the fact that the husband had chosen not to contest the transfer. The bench observed that requiring Poonam to travel that distance to defend herself in a case where the other side was not even showing up would be unjust. The transfer was allowed.

The operative order was crisp: Hindu Marriage Petition No. 01/2023, titled "Ankur Ashokbhai Pawar vs. Smt. Poonam Ankur Pawar," pending before the Court of District Judge of Dadra & Nagar Haveli at Silvassa, stands transferred to the Court of Principal Judge, Family Court, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The Silvassa court was directed to transfer the entire record expeditiously. All pending applications were disposed of. The case, reported as 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 579, now stands as a clean precedent.

What this means for a spouse facing a distant court

For practitioners, this case offers a clean precedent on two points. First, the distance between the court and the respondent's residence is a valid ground for transfer under Section 25 CPC, especially when the other side does not oppose it. Second, and more importantly, the court has flagged that ignoring a conjugal rights case is not a neutral act — it carries enforcement teeth under Order XXI Rule 32. A spouse who stays away from the proceedings does not make the case disappear; they simply hand the court a reason to move the case closer to the other side.

THE PLAY: If you are served with a restitution of conjugal rights petition filed in a court far from your residence, file a transfer petition under Section 25 CPC immediately — and do not assume that staying silent will make the case harmless.

The husband never showed up. The case moved anyway.