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Home › Find an Advocate › Karkardooma Court

Karkardooma Court, Delhi — in a family matter nobody wins, they come out with something, and what that is depends mostly on how they went in

This page is written for both sides, and it takes neither. Almost everything published about family court in India is written to help one party defeat the other, which is why so much of it is wrong and most of it is useless once you are actually sitting in the corridor. What decides these matters is duller and more durable: whether the three separate questions were kept separate, whether income was disclosed honestly, whether mediation was taken seriously, and whether the children were kept out of it. None of that requires you to be the cleverer party.

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What is a family court, and how is it different?It is a court set up under its own statute for matrimonial and family disputes, sitting inside the district court complexes. It is meant to be less formal than an ordinary civil court and to attempt settlement first, which is why mediation is a real stage and not a delay. Karkardooma, in east Delhi, opened in 1993 and carries a heavy family docket. One correction worth making at the outset: a domestic violence proceeding is civil, not criminal.

What this page covers

  1. Three separate questions, and the damage of treating them as one
  2. What a family court actually is
  3. The correction that matters most: a domestic violence case is civil
  4. What the domestic violence law can actually give
  5. A residence right is not ownership
  6. Mutual consent and contested: not two flavours of the same thing
  7. The interval, and when it can be waived
  8. The petitions that are not divorce
  9. The case inside the case
  10. How maintenance is actually decided
  11. More than one maintenance proceeding at once
  12. Income disclosure: the single highest-value thing you control
  13. If part of you still wants the marriage
  14. Custody: the welfare of the child, and what that actually means
  15. Grandparents, and the relative nobody thought about
  16. The line that should not be crossed
  17. Mediation, and why in a family matter it is not a delay
  18. A settlement that actually holds
  19. What a family hearing feels like, and the one that surprises people
  20. Personal attendance
  21. Evidence in a family matter, and what not to bring
  22. When a matrimonial dispute also becomes a criminal case
  23. When the dispute is about parents rather than spouses
  24. What you post, and what you send
  25. What these cases cost, beyond money
  26. In-laws, relatives and people who are not really parties
  27. If one party is outside India
  28. Proving the marriage
  29. The Karkardooma complex
  30. Shahdara, East and North-East — if your summons says one of these, this is your building
  31. Getting there, and the day itself
  32. Free legal help
  33. After the decree — the part nobody plans
  34. Your own file, and the two pages at the front
  35. What makes these cases longer and worse
  36. Papers to have ready
  37. Where our work ends and an advocate’s begins
  38. What we refuse, and why
  39. What we charge for our part
  40. Questions people ask

Three separate questions, and the damage of treating them as one

Almost every family matter is really three disputes wearing one coat: whether the marriage ends, what happens about money, and what happens about the children. They have different tests, different evidence and different timelines, and a court will decide them separately whether or not the parties do.

What goes wrong is that people bundle them. A position on money gets used to settle a score about the marriage. Access to a child becomes leverage over maintenance. Somebody who would have agreed the divorce refuses it because they are angry about the property. The bundle takes years to untie and every knot is paid for.

Write them on three separate sheets

What do I want about the marriage. What do I want about money. What do I want about the children. Then look at whether any of the three would actually be improved by losing on another. Almost always the answer is no, and that realisation is the cheapest thing on this page.

This page is about that. How the campus works, when your matter is called and what a first date looks like are on our Tis Hazari page and apply here too; which court has power over a case at all is on our Saket page; and if any part of your situation has become criminal, the timings are on our Rohini page. None of that is repeated here.

What a family court actually is

Family courts exist under their own statute, and they were created because ordinary civil procedure was a poor fit for disputes between people who will still be connected afterwards. The design intention is a less formal proceeding, an attempt at settlement before anything else, and a court that is permitted to take a more active role than a judge in an ordinary suit.

That is the design. The experience is still a court: a list, a waiting corridor, dates, and the other side sitting a few feet away. The difference that is real and worth using is the settlement machinery — mediation and counselling are not an obstacle placed in your path, they are the part of the system most likely to give you an outcome you can live with.

Which advocates actually work at Karkardooma?Follow this and the list arrives already cut down to them. It is ordered A to Z, because nobody here is ranked and nobody has bought a place.
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The correction that matters most: a domestic violence case is civil

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is civil legislation. An application under it is not a first information report. It does not, by itself, make anybody an accused, and it is not the police registering a case.

What the court can do under it is grant relief: protection orders restraining further acts, residence orders about the shared household, monetary relief, orders about custody, and compensation. A criminal consequence enters only later and only in one way — where an order already made is breached.

Both sides act wrongly on this, and both pay

The respondent’s family panics as though somebody is about to be arrested, and spends the first month on the wrong problem. The applicant is sometimes told it is a criminal case and expects an arrest that is not coming, then feels the law has failed. Neither is what the statute says. Get this straight before anything else is decided.

What the domestic violence law can actually give

ReliefWhat it does
Protection orderRestrains specified acts — further violence, contact, entering a workplace, and so on
Residence orderProtects the right to reside in the shared household; can restrain dispossession, and in some circumstances direct alternative accommodation
Monetary reliefPayment towards expenses and losses, which can include maintenance
Custody orderInterim custody of children where required
CompensationFor injuries, including mental distress

An application under the Act is made to the Magistrate, and there is a Protection Officer in the structure whose role is to assist the process. Interim orders can be made while the application is pending, which is why timing matters here as much as anywhere.

A residence right is not ownership

This is where families and in-laws get into the deepest trouble, because two true statements get mistaken for each other. A woman may have a right to reside in a shared household. That right does not make her the owner of the property, and it does not transfer title to anybody.

Equally, the fact that a house is in somebody else’s name — a parent’s, a brother’s — does not automatically put it outside the reach of a residence order. What the household actually is, factually, matters.

The practical consequence is that title disputes and residence questions should not be argued as though they are the same case. Where ownership is genuinely in issue, that is separate litigation with its own forum and its own evidence — and our jurisdiction page explains why putting it in the wrong place costs months.

Mutual consent and contested: not two flavours of the same thing

Mutual consentContested
What has to be shownThat both sides genuinely and freely agree, and that the terms are settledA ground, pleaded and proved on evidence
EvidenceMinimal; the court satisfies itself the consent is realFull — witnesses, documents, cross-examination
TimeMonthsYears, and appeals after that
What it costs beyond moneyComparatively littleThe relationship with the other family, and often with the children
Can it change?Consent must hold until the end; either side may withdrawCan convert to mutual at any stage, and often does — years later

The last row is the one worth staring at. A very large proportion of contested matrimonial cases end in a settlement anyway. The question is whether that settlement happens in year one or year six, and the terms are rarely much better in year six. Our mutual divorce documentation prepares the papers where agreement is genuinely there; where it is not, saying so honestly is more useful than pretending.

The interval, and when it can be waived

A mutual consent divorce has a statutory interval between the first and second motion, built in so that consent is not a momentary thing. In appropriate cases the Supreme Court has held that the interval may be waived.

Appropriate is doing a lot of work in that sentence. What is looked at is how long the parties have already lived apart, whether the settlement is complete and being performed rather than promised, and whether there is any realistic prospect of reconciliation left. Waiver is not automatic and it is not a formality — so do not book a flight, a visa appointment or a second marriage around an assumption about it.

The petitions that are not divorce

Divorce is not the only thing a matrimonial court is asked for, and two of the others are routinely misunderstood.

Restitution of conjugal rights is a petition asking the court to direct that the parties resume living together, available where one has withdrawn from the society of the other without reasonable excuse. Two things about it. It is a real remedy with a real purpose for people who genuinely want the marriage to continue. And it is also filed tactically, to get in first or to build a position, which both sides of the profession know perfectly well. If you are considering one, be honest with yourself and with your advocate about which of the two it is, because a petition filed for the second reason tends to be visible as such.

Nullity is different from divorce in a way that matters. A divorce ends a valid marriage. A decree of nullity says the marriage was void or voidable from the start — on grounds the statute specifies, such as an existing spouse at the time of the marriage, or the absence of valid consent. It is not an easier route to the same place, the grounds are narrow, and the consequences for legitimacy and for maintenance are not identical. People reach for it because “annulment sounds cleaner”; that is not a reason.

Judicial separation sits between the two: the parties remain married but are relieved of the obligation to cohabit. It is sometimes the right answer where divorce is not wanted, for personal, religious or family reasons, but the relationship cannot continue as it is.

Which of these fits is a question for an advocate on your facts, and getting it wrong wastes a year. What you can usefully do beforehand is be clear about the outcome you actually want, as opposed to the one you want the other side to have.

The case inside the case

A matrimonial matter that runs for years is not one long wait. Inside it there are interim applications, and for most people those matter far more day to day than the final decree ever will: interim maintenance while the case runs, interim custody and access, an application about where somebody lives, an application to restrain a transfer of property, an application for the expenses of the litigation itself.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the early months are not dead time — they are when the arrangement you will live under for years gets set, which is why applying early rather than waiting for the case to progress is usually right. Second, an interim order is interim: it can be varied when circumstances genuinely change, and a person whose income has actually collapsed, or whose child’s needs have actually changed, is not stuck with an order made three years ago.

Our application drafting desk prepares these to counsel’s instructions. What decides them is almost never eloquence — it is whether the financial documents were attached.

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How maintenance is actually decided

We are not going to print a figure, a fraction or a formula, because there is no honest one. What a court weighs is a set of facts, and the parties who do well are the ones who put those facts on the record properly.

What actually goes into it

  • The reasonable needs of the person claiming, judged against the standard of living during the marriage rather than against a subsistence line.
  • The income and the earning capacity of both sides — capacity, not only what is currently being drawn.
  • The responsibilities each side carries, including dependants and genuine liabilities.
  • What is already being paid or received under any other order.
  • Whether the claimant has independent income, and whether that is sufficient.

Two practical things decide these applications far more often than argument does. The first is honest, documented disclosure of income — salary slips, bank statements, tax records, loan commitments, rent. The second is whether interim relief was sought early: an application made in the first months does something that the same application made in year three cannot.

More than one maintenance proceeding at once

Claims can arise under different statutes, and it is entirely common for two or three proceedings to be running between the same two people. That is not itself improper.

What the law does not permit is double recovery. A court considering one claim will take into account what is already being paid under another. So the sensible course, on both sides, is full disclosure of every proceeding at the first meeting with your advocate. A concealed parallel proceeding does not stay concealed, and when it surfaces it damages the credibility of everything else that person said.

Income disclosure: the single highest-value thing you control

Both sides do it. The one who pays understates; the one who receives overstates need and understates their own capacity. Courts have seen both a thousand times.

Consider what actually happens when a disclosure is shown to be false. It is not a technical point that gets corrected; it changes how everything else that person has said is read, for the rest of the case, including the parts that were true. In a proceeding that will run for years and turn repeatedly on whose account to believe, that is an expensive thing to spend.

The test to apply to your own affidavit

If the other side produced, tomorrow, every bank statement and tax record you have, would anything in your affidavit look dishonest? If yes, fix it now rather than being fixed later.

If part of you still wants the marriage

Almost nothing written about family court allows for this, and it is extremely common: one or both people are not actually sure. They have filed, or been filed against, while still deciding.

It is worth saying clearly that the system has room for this. Counselling is built into the design of family courts. A petition can be withdrawn. A mutual consent divorce requires consent to hold all the way to the second motion precisely so that a decision taken in a bad month is not final. Judicial separation exists for people who cannot continue as they are but do not want the marriage ended. None of that is a loophole; it is the statute anticipating that people change their minds.

What does foreclose it is escalation. Once a wide circle of relatives has been named, once a criminal complaint is in, once things have been said publicly, the path back narrows sharply — not because the law shuts it, but because the two families stop being able to. If you are genuinely undecided, say that to your advocate before the first filing rather than after the third application. It changes what should be filed, and in what order.

This is not advice to stay in a marriage. Where there is violence or fear, the protective remedies exist and should be used, and nothing above applies. It is simply a note that for the large number of people who are still deciding, the early filings decide more than they realise.

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Custody: the welfare of the child, and what that actually means

The paramount consideration is the welfare of the child. That is not a pleasantry — it is the test, and it displaces what either parent believes is fair to them.

What it means in practice is that a court is looking at the child rather than at the parents’ conduct towards each other: the child’s age and needs, stability and schooling, who has actually been caring for the child, and what each parent can realistically provide in terms of time, home and support. A parent who was wronged in the marriage does not thereby become the better arrangement for the child, and being told so is one of the hardest parts of this process.

Two further points people do not expect. Custody is not permanent — it can be revisited as circumstances change. And custody and access are different: the parent who does not have custody ordinarily retains a right of contact, because that too is part of the child’s welfare rather than a concession to the parent.

Grandparents, and the relative nobody thought about

When a marriage breaks, a child usually loses more than one relationship. Grandparents who saw the child every week stop seeing them at all, and everybody treats that as an unavoidable side effect of the parents’ dispute.

It does not have to be. Courts deciding contact are looking at the welfare of the child, and a child’s established relationship with grandparents is part of that picture rather than outside it. The point is worth raising properly rather than leaving as a grievance, and it is worth raising early, because a relationship interrupted for three years is harder to restore than one that was never broken.

The reverse is also worth saying, to the side that holds the child. Cutting off the other family’s grandparents rarely reads as protection of the child; it reads as punishment of the adults, and it is noticed. Where there is a genuine reason — and sometimes there is — say what it is, on record, rather than simply stopping contact.

The line that should not be crossed

Whatever else happens, not this

  • Do not discuss the case in front of the children, and do not let relatives do it either.
  • Do not ask a child to choose, or to report on the other parent.
  • Do not send messages to the other parent through the child.
  • Do not record the children, and do not produce recordings of them.
  • Do not use access as a bargaining chip for money, in either direction.
  • Do not tell a child that the other parent has abandoned them, unless you would say it in front of a judge.

The first reason is the child. The second reason, which matters to people who are past listening to the first: courts see it, it is raised, and it lands on the parent who did it. There is no version of this that is clever.

Mediation, and why in a family matter it is not a delay

A mediator is not a judge and does not decide anything. What happens in the room is an attempt, with help, to build an arrangement the two of you can both live with. It is confidential, nothing said there becomes evidence, and either side can end it.

In commercial matters people treat mediation as a formality. In family matters that is a mistake with a long tail, for a reason specific to this kind of dispute: the two of you will still be connected afterwards. There will be a graduation, an illness, a wedding. An order imposed on two people who fought for six years produces a decade of further friction; an arrangement they built themselves usually does not.

How to use it properly

  • Go with your three sheets — marriage, money, children — and know which of the three you would trade.
  • Take the income documents. A settlement built on a figure nobody can verify collapses.
  • Let the mediator do the talking between you. That is the whole point of the room.
  • Do not agree to anything in the corridor afterwards. Take it away, work it out, come back.
  • If it fails, it fails privately and nothing said there follows you into the hearing.
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A settlement that actually holds

Most settlements that fail did not fail because somebody was dishonest. They failed because they were written in general words, and general words mean two different things to two people who are no longer speaking.

Written like this, it failsWritten like this, it holds
“Reasonable maintenance will be paid”A stated amount, a stated date each month, a stated mode of payment, into a stated account
“The husband will pay a lump sum”The amount, the dates of each instalment, and what happens if one is missed
“Reasonable visitation”Which days, what times, who collects and returns, where the handover happens, and how holidays and festivals are divided
“Both parties will withdraw the cases”Each proceeding named, with who withdraws it and at which stage
“Jewellery will be returned”An itemised list, a date and a place
“The flat will be transferred”Which document will be executed, by when, who bears the stamp duty, and who holds the papers meanwhile

Two more things belong in every one of them: the sequence, so that neither side has to perform everything before the other performs anything, and what happens on default. Where the terms are agreed, we prepare a mutual settlement agreement, and where property moves as part of it, the transfer documents that go with it.

What a family hearing feels like, and the one that surprises people

The mechanics are the same as any court — the list, the wait, the short appearance — and our Tis Hazari page sets those out. What is different here is that you will be in the same corridor as the other party, sometimes for hours, sometimes with both families present.

Plan for that rather than being ambushed by it. Decide in advance that there will be no conversation, no negotiation and no scene in the corridor. If being in the same space is genuinely unsafe, say so to your advocate in advance — arrangements for that are asked for regularly and are not an unusual request.

Personal attendance

Family matters require the parties themselves far more often than ordinary civil litigation does, particularly at mediation and at the stages where a court wants to see and hear the people rather than their counsel. Exemption can be sought where there is a real reason — distance, work abroad, health — but it is sought, not assumed.

Ask at the end of every date whether you must attend the next one, and write the answer down. In this jurisdiction, an unexplained absence is read as an attitude to the proceedings, and in a case where the court is forming a view about two people as parents, that is not a cheap signal to send.

Evidence in a family matter, and what not to bring

Documents carry the weight: the marriage record, the income papers, the bank statements, the school records, the medical records, the contemporaneous complaints if there were any. Messages and call records have their place where they show something specific — a threat, an admission, an arrangement about a child.

What does not help, and regularly hurts, is volume. A bundle of four hundred screenshots of a marriage going badly says nothing a court can act on, costs days, and makes the person who filed it look like somebody who cannot stop. Ten documents that each prove one fact beat four hundred that prove an atmosphere.

Do not produce these

  • Intimate photographs or videos, of anybody, for any reason.
  • Recordings of children, or children’s statements collected by a parent.
  • Material obtained by accessing somebody’s phone, email or accounts without permission. Take advice before relying on anything of that kind — the cost is not only whether it is admitted.
  • Anything about a third party’s private life that is not actually in issue.

When a matrimonial dispute also becomes a criminal case

It happens often enough that it should be dealt with plainly, and it is dealt with here without taking a side, because both things are true: there are marriages in which real cruelty and real harm occur and the criminal law exists for exactly that, and there are complaints in which a wide circle of relatives is named for leverage. A page that pretends only one of those happens is not being honest with either reader.

What matters practically is that a criminal proceeding is a different animal from everything else on this page. Different court, different procedure, different vocabulary, and above all different timings — arrest, production within twenty-four hours, custody, bail, charge-sheet. Those clocks are set out on our Rohini page and they run whether or not anybody in either family understands them.

The point people miss on both sides

Settling the matrimonial dispute does not automatically end a criminal case. Some offences cannot simply be withdrawn by the complainant. Where the parties have genuinely settled everything, the route is usually an application to the High Court to bring the proceedings to an end — a separate proceeding, in a separate forum, that has to be planned into the settlement rather than assumed.

So if a settlement is being negotiated and a criminal case exists, the agreement has to say what happens to it, who applies, when, and what each side does in support. A settlement that is silent on that produces a second dispute within months, and the money has usually already moved.

When the dispute is about parents rather than spouses

Not every family matter is a marriage. A significant share of what walks into these complexes is about elderly parents — maintenance, and being removed from or kept in a home.

There is a specific statute for it: the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, which provides a route for parents and senior citizens to claim maintenance from children or relatives through a tribunal rather than through ordinary litigation, and which also deals with property transferred on a promise of care that was then not given.

Two reasons to know this exists. It is meant to be quicker and less formal than a suit, and it is a forum an elderly person can approach without the apparatus of full-scale litigation. And it is frequently the correct answer to a problem people are trying to solve in the wrong place — a parent being pushed out of a house, or a child claiming a house was gifted absolutely when it was given on an understanding.

If that is your situation, say so at the first meeting. The remedy, the forum and the evidence are all different from anything else described on this page.

What you post, and what you send

Assume that everything reaches the file. A post about the other party, a status about the case, a message sent at two in the morning, a voice note sent in anger — all of it can be printed and handed up, and none of it reads the way it felt when it was sent.

There is also a specific trap in family matters: publishing about proceedings of this kind is restricted, and doing it can create a problem entirely separate from the case you are already fighting. The rule to run everything through is simple. Would you be content for this to be read aloud, by the other side’s counsel, in front of the judge, and in front of your children when they are twenty?

What these cases cost, beyond money

What counsel charges is a matter between the two of you and is not published here. Leave that out of the reckoning altogether and family litigation still carries a bill nobody prepares for — and seeing it in advance tends to change how people run the case.

Working days. Family matters demand personal attendance more often than other litigation, and each date is a day off. Over several years, for two people, that is the largest number in the exercise and almost nobody counts it.

The second household. Once there are two homes, the same income supports both. Every maintenance dispute is at bottom an arithmetic problem that has no good solution, which is worth remembering before treating the other side’s position as malice.

The relatives. Parents on both sides age through this. People who are drawn in as parties give up days and sleep over a dispute that was never theirs.

The children’s years. A case that runs six years runs through a child’s childhood, and that part is not recoverable at the end of it whichever way the decree goes.

The one question worth asking every year

Is what remains in dispute actually worth another year of all of the above? For a large number of matters that reach year three, the honest answer is no, and the settlement finally signed in year six was available in year two.

In-laws, relatives and people who are not really parties

Family litigation has a way of drawing in people who have very little to do with the dispute — elderly parents, married sisters, brothers living in other cities. Sometimes there is a genuine reason. Very often there is not, and naming a wide circle is done to create pressure.

It is worth understanding what that actually buys. It hardens the other family completely, it makes settlement far less likely for years, and courts are alert to it. If you are on the receiving end of it, the answer is not to do the same thing back; it is to put the correct factual position on record, calmly, and let the width of the case work against the person who drew it.

If one party is outside India

Two separate problems, and they get confused. One is whether an Indian court can deal with the matter at all, which turns on the ordinary connections. The other is service — getting the proceedings properly delivered abroad — which has its own procedure and is very often the slowest part of the whole case.

There is a third issue specific to this area: a decree or order obtained in one country is not automatically effective in another, and parallel proceedings in two countries are expensive and occasionally self-defeating. If either party is abroad, or plans to be, raise it at the first meeting rather than at the stage where it becomes a crisis. Where documents have to be executed from abroad, we prepare those and the affidavits that go with them.

Proving the marriage

A surprising number of matters stall at the very first step because the marriage itself is not documented. Where a registration certificate exists, everything downstream is easier; where it does not, proof has to be assembled from photographs, invitations, witnesses and religious records, and that takes time nobody planned for.

If you are reading this before anything has gone wrong, register the marriage. Our marriage registration service does it, and it is the cheapest piece of protection in this entire subject — for both parties, equally.

The Karkardooma complex

This campus dates from 1993 and covers the eastern side of the city, with several district courts inside it. What gets anybody to the correct room, here as at every complex, is a number: the one printed next to your matter on that morning’s list. Not the type of case, and certainly not the direction a stranger gestures in.

There is no district-allocation chart here, deliberately. Those assignments are made administratively and have shifted as campuses were added, and an outdated one costs somebody a journey across Delhi. Three things do not go out of date: your own summons, the official case system, and the clerk at the window.

Shahdara, East and North-East — if your summons says one of these, this is your building

A great many people arrive at this page having searched for “Shahdara court”, and it is worth saying plainly what the position is, because the confusion costs people a morning.

Delhi has seven district court complexes — Tis Hazari, Patiala House, Karkardooma, Rohini, Dwarka, Saket and Rouse Avenue. There is no separate Shahdara court building. Shahdara is a judicial district, and Karkardooma is the complex it sits in; more than one district is housed here, which is precisely why the name on your papers and the name of the campus do not match.

So a summons, notice or cause list naming the Shahdara district, the East district or the North-East district is telling you which district your matter belongs to, not which address to travel to. The address is this one. What actually gets you to the right room once you are inside is not the district name at all — it is the court number set against your case on the day’s cause list, and that habit is explained on our Tis Hazari page.

One caution, for the same reason no district-allocation chart appears anywhere on this site: the allocation of districts between complexes is administrative and it changes. Confirm from your own summons or from the cause list rather than from any website, including this one.

Getting there, and the day itself

The complex sits in east Delhi near Anand Vihar and the area is on the Metro, which on a weekday morning is the dependable way to arrive. Court parking goes early. You will be screened at the gate, so treat that as its own delay, bring government photo identity, and carry little else.

One thing specific to a family date: bring somebody with you if you can. Not to argue — they cannot — but because these are long mornings and sitting through them alone, in sight of the other family, is harder than people expect. It is entirely normal and nobody will object.

Free legal help

Under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 a set of categories can claim legal services for nothing, and a woman falls inside it whatever she earns. Each Delhi campus keeps a legal services desk on the premises. To reach them by phone: 1516 from within the city, 15100 from anywhere in India.

Family litigation has a particular way of consuming savings, because it runs for years and each year brings an application. If the entitlement exists, use it from the beginning rather than after the money is gone.

After the decree — the part nobody plans

A decree is not the end of the administration. What follows it is a short list of dull tasks that people put off and then need urgently, usually at a passport counter or a registrar’s office years later.

Do these within the month

  • Obtain a certified copy of the decree. A photograph is not accepted anywhere that matters, and getting one years later is far harder.
  • Check whether the appeal period has run before treating anything as final.
  • Do what the settlement said, on the dates it said, and keep proof of each step — transfers, receipts, handovers.
  • Update the records that carry marital status where a change is actually required, and update nominations on insurance, provident fund and accounts — the single most common omission, and the one that causes trouble for the people left behind.
  • If a name is being changed back, do it properly and consistently across documents rather than on one and not the others.
  • Keep the whole file. Custody and maintenance can be revisited for years, and the person with the record has a much easier time of it.

And one thing that is not administration: the custody and access arrangement now has to be operated by two people who have just finished litigating. The first six months of actually doing the handovers on time, without messages attached, is what decides whether anybody is back in this building in two years.

Your own file, and the two pages at the front

Keep a file of your own: the case number on the cover, every paper filed exactly as filed with its acknowledgement, every order received, and a one-line entry for each date.

In a family matter, put two extra pages at the front. One is the list of every proceeding running between the two of you, with its number and its stage, because there will be more than one and nobody remembers them all. The other is the running record of what has actually been paid or received and when — the single most-disputed fact in this entire area, and the one most easily settled by a page nobody had to reconstruct afterwards.

What makes these cases longer and worse

What people doWhat it produces
Treating the domestic violence application as a criminal caseA month spent on the wrong problem, by both sides
Using the children as leverage over moneyThe court’s view of that parent, for the rest of the case
Understating income on affidavitEverything else that person says being read differently
Naming every relative as a partySettlement becoming impossible for years
Treating mediation as a formality to be sat throughLosing the one stage where the outcome was yours to shape
A settlement written in general wordsA fresh round of litigation about what was agreed
Four hundred screenshots instead of ten documentsDays of hearings and a poor impression
Posting about the caseA separate problem on top of the one you had
Refusing the divorce out of anger while wanting itSix years to reach the settlement available in year one
Never registering the marriageProving the marriage itself before anything else can start

Papers to have ready

Proof of the marriage. Identity and address for both parties. Income documentation — salary, bank statements, tax records, loans and commitments — for whichever side is asserting anything about money, which in practice is both. The children’s documents and school records where custody is in issue. Medical records where health or injury is in issue. And affidavits in the form required, sworn before an oath commissioner.

Two disciplines save the most trouble here. Use one spelling of each name across the whole bundle — identity papers and marriage records disagreeing with each other is the classic Karkardooma delay, and it surfaces on a morning when there is no time to fix it. And religious marriage records are frequently in a script the court does not use, so have the translation made long before the date.

Where our work ends and an advocate’s begins

Legal Space Services is a documentation house. We are not advocates, we do not hold a vakalatnama, and we are never the ones speaking when your matter is called. In a family file the portion that belongs to us is everything on paper: the petition or application written out as counsel dictates it, the supporting affidavits, annexures put in order and numbered, e-stamping, the swearing arranged, the sets assembled, the trip to the filing window and the receipt handed back to you, and certified copies obtained when an order comes.

Everything said aloud in the room is counsel’s. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. Not appointed anybody so far? Browsing the directory and sending a message through it are both free, and no listing on it was bought.

What we refuse, and why

  • A side. We prepare documents for whoever asks, and we will not take instructions to draft something designed to injure rather than to state a case.
  • A tactic involving a child. Not access as leverage, not a recording, not a statement collected from a child.
  • Any suggestion that one advocate is better than another. The listing runs A to Z and will continue to.
  • What counsel charges. That number is not ours to publish, to receive, or to take a slice of.
  • A pleading that says something we have been told is untrue — and no document ever carries a date it was not made on.
  • Custody of your originals. They remain with you; copies are all we need.

What we charge for our part

Every document has its own price and every price is visible on that document’s service page before you order. Money the State takes — court fee, stamp duty, copying charges — is listed apart from ours, because it is collected by the office concerned and never reaches us.

You are told the whole figure at the start, and we take nothing in advance. If the honest answer is that a lawyer is what you need and not a document, we will say it on the phone, and sending you to the directory is free. If the State will represent you at no cost, we will say that as well.

In a family matter one more thing is worth saying plainly: if what you actually want is for the marriage to be repaired rather than ended, say so early. The paperwork for a contested divorce is not the thing to order while you are still deciding.

Sources and a caution

  • Karkardooma Courts Complex, east Delhi, near Anand Vihar — opened 1993; the campus holds more than one district court. The allocation of districts to complexes is administrative and is revised from time to time.
  • The Family Courts Act, 1984 — the establishment of family courts and the intention that settlement be attempted and procedure be less formal.
  • The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 — civil legislation; the application to a Magistrate, the role of the Protection Officer, the right to reside in a shared household, and the reliefs available (protection, residence, monetary relief, custody and compensation). Breach of an order made under the Act carries a criminal consequence; the proceeding itself is not a criminal case.
  • The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (including Section 13 on divorce and Section 13B on divorce by mutual consent, and Section 19 on where a petition may be presented) and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (including Sections 27, 28 and 31). On waiver of the interval between motions in a mutual consent divorce, the Supreme Court has held that the period may be waived in appropriate cases.
  • Maintenance may be claimed under the criminal procedure code, the domestic violence law and the matrimonial statutes; double recovery is not permitted and what is paid under one order is taken into account in another.
  • The Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 and the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 — custody and guardianship, with the welfare of the minor as the paramount consideration.
  • The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 — the categories entitled to free legal services, with a woman qualifying irrespective of income. Delhi income limits and helpline numbers are published by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority and are revised.
  • Rule 36, Part VI Chapter II of the Bar Council of India Rules — why nothing here ranks, rates or prices an advocate.
  • This is general information about how family proceedings work. It says nothing about your own matter, it takes no side, and it is not a substitute for an advocate who has read your papers. Personal law differs between communities and the position under each is not identical; statutes and procedures are amended. Confirm anything that turns on your own facts.
FAQ

Karkardooma and family matters — questions people ask

What is Karkardooma Court?
It is one of Delhi’s district court complexes, in the east of the city near Anand Vihar, and it opened in 1993. More than one district court sits inside it. Like every complex it is a campus rather than a courtroom, and on a hearing day the thing you navigate by is the court number shown against your case on that day’s list — our Tis Hazari page explains how to read one.
Is the Family Court a different court?
Yes, and that surprises people. Family courts are set up under their own statute to deal with matrimonial and family matters, and they work differently from an ordinary civil court by design — proceedings are meant to be less formal, settlement is meant to be attempted first, and the atmosphere is intended to be less adversarial. They sit within the district court complexes. Which complex yours is in depends on the case, and your summons or the official case system will say.
What kinds of matters go to a family court?
Broadly, the disputes that arise out of a relationship rather than out of a transaction: divorce and judicial separation, restitution of conjugal rights, nullity, maintenance, custody and guardianship of children, and disputes about property between spouses. Proceedings under the domestic violence law and maintenance proceedings under the criminal procedure code are also part of the same landscape, though they are not identical and are dealt with separately below.
Is a domestic violence case a criminal case?
No, and this is the single most common misunderstanding in this entire subject. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is civil legislation. An application under it is not an FIR and does not by itself make anybody an accused. What it can produce are protection orders, residence orders, monetary relief, custody orders and compensation. A criminal consequence arises only if an order made under it is later breached. People on both sides act on the assumption that it is a criminal case and both sides make bad decisions as a result.
What is a residence order?
Under the domestic violence law, an aggrieved woman has a right to reside in the shared household, and the court can pass orders protecting that right — restraining dispossession, or in some circumstances directing alternative accommodation. It is not the same thing as ownership: a residence right and a title to property are two different questions, and being ordered not to dispossess somebody does not make them an owner. Both halves of that sentence get forgotten by the side each half suits.
What is the difference between mutual consent divorce and a contested one?
A world of difference in time, cost and damage. In a mutual consent divorce both sides agree that the marriage should end and agree the terms — maintenance, property, custody — and the court satisfies itself that the consent is genuine and free. A contested petition is litigation: grounds have to be pleaded and proved, evidence is led, and it takes years. Where a mutual divorce is genuinely possible it is almost always the better route, and our mutual divorce documentation service prepares the papers.
Is there a waiting period in a mutual consent divorce?
There is a statutory interval between the first and second motion, and in appropriate cases the Supreme Court has held that it may be waived. Whether waiver is appropriate turns on the facts — how long the parties have already been separated, whether the settlement is complete and being performed, whether there is any prospect of reconciliation. Do not treat waiver as automatic, and do not plan a date around it. Ask an advocate on the facts.
Where do I file a matrimonial petition?
There is usually a choice, and the statutes set it out — broadly where the marriage was solemnised, where the respondent resides, where the parties last resided together, and, where the wife is the petitioner, where she resides. Our page on jurisdiction works through the choice and its consequences, because where a matter is filed decides years of travel for one side or the other.
Why has my case been sent to mediation?
Because in family matters it works more often than people expect, and because the law expects settlement to be attempted. A mediator helps the two sides build their own arrangement, privately, with nothing said in the room usable as evidence and either side free to stop. In a family matter this is not a delay — it is usually the only stage at which the outcome is yours to shape rather than to receive, and the only one that leaves people able to speak to each other afterwards. Attend it properly.
How is maintenance decided?
On the facts, and we are not going to print a figure or a formula, because no honest source can. What a court looks at is the needs of the person claiming, the standard of living during the marriage, the income and earning capacity of both sides, the responsibilities each carries, and what is already being paid. Two things decide these applications in practice: honest, documented income disclosure, and whether an interim arrangement was sought early.
Can maintenance be claimed in more than one proceeding?
Claims can arise under different statutes — the criminal procedure code, the domestic violence law, and the matrimonial statutes — and it is common for more than one to be running. What the law does not permit is double recovery: a court will take into account what is already being paid under another order. Tell your advocate about every proceeding, on both sides. Concealing one is the kind of thing that comes out at the worst moment.
How is custody decided?
By the welfare of the child, which is the paramount consideration and overrides what either parent feels is fair. Courts look at the child’s age, needs, schooling, stability, and the practical arrangements each parent can actually provide. Custody is also not permanent: it can be revisited as circumstances change. And custody and access are different things — the parent who does not have custody ordinarily still has a right of contact with the child.
Can we agree custody between ourselves?
You can agree an arrangement and put it before the court, and a workable agreed arrangement carries real weight. What you cannot do is contract the child’s welfare away: the court retains its own duty, and an agreement that is plainly against the child’s interest will not simply be rubber-stamped. The practical advice is to agree the ordinary things in detail — school, holidays, pick-up, festivals, medical decisions — because vagueness in a custody arrangement is what brings people back to court.
Should I involve my children in the case?
No. Do not discuss the case in front of them, do not ask them to choose, do not send messages through them, and do not record them. Apart from the harm to the child, which should be reason enough, courts see it and it does not help the parent who does it. If a child’s wishes matter at a particular age, there is a proper way for a court to hear them, and it is not through a parent.
What is a settlement agreement in a matrimonial matter?
It is the written record of what the two sides have agreed — the money, the property, the custody and access arrangement, who withdraws what proceedings, and when each step happens. Its quality decides whether the settlement holds. The ones that fail are the ones written in general terms; the ones that hold specify amounts, dates, modes of payment and what happens if a step is missed. We prepare a mutual settlement agreement where the terms have been agreed.
What documents will be asked for?
Proof of marriage, identity and address for both sides, and — in almost every kind of application here — honest documentation of income and assets. Beyond that it depends: for custody, the child’s documents and school records; for maintenance, salary, bank statements, tax records, rent and loan commitments; for domestic violence proceedings, medical records, messages and any contemporaneous complaint. Keep everything in date order.
What if my spouse hides income?
It happens constantly, on both sides, and courts are entirely familiar with it. There are ways to place the true position before the court, and a court is not obliged to accept a bare denial. The one thing that does not work is matching it — understating your own position to balance theirs. Disclosure that is later shown to be false damages the person who made it far more than the concealment they were responding to.
Are these hearings held in public?
Family proceedings are conducted with a degree of privacy that ordinary civil matters do not have, and there are restrictions on publishing what goes on in them. That said, do not treat the process as invisible. Assume that anything you write to the other side, post publicly, or say in front of others may end up on the record.
How long does a family case take?
A genuinely agreed mutual divorce is measured in months. A contested matrimonial case is measured in years, and maintenance and custody applications within it run on their own timelines alongside. Nobody honest will give you a date. What shortens it is being ready at every stage; what lengthens it is documents that were not filed and dates that were not attended.
Do I have to attend every date?
In family matters personal appearance is required more often than in ordinary civil litigation, particularly at mediation and at the stages where the court wants to see the parties themselves. Exemption can be sought where there is a real reason. Never assume — ask at the end of each date whether you must be there next time, and write the answer down.
Can I record my spouse without telling them?
Take advice before you rely on anything of that kind. Whether such material can be used, and what it costs you in credibility when it is produced, are separate questions from whether it exists. What is clear is that secretly recording children, or producing intimate material, is the sort of thing that damages the person who does it. Do not do it to score a point.
Is there free legal help for a family matter?
Yes. Free legal services are available under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to several categories of person, and a woman qualifies irrespective of income. There is a legal services desk inside Delhi’s court complexes, and the numbers are 1516 in Delhi and 15100 nationally. In a family matter this is worth using early rather than after savings are gone.
How do I get to Karkardooma Court?
It is in east Delhi near Anand Vihar and the area is served by the Metro, which on a working morning is far more predictable than driving. Parking around any district court fills early. Allow for the security queue and the walk inside the campus as a separate item from the journey.
Can Legal Space Services appear for me in a family matter?
No. Appearing and arguing is advocacy and this is a documentation and filing business. We prepare the papers — petitions, applications, affidavits, settlement agreements — typed, formatted, stamped and lodged to your advocate’s instructions. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it.
What does your own work cost?
It depends on the papers, and each figure sits on its own service page, in the open, before anything is ordered. Court fee, stamp and copying charges belong to the authority that levies them and are named separately rather than folded into our number. We tell you the total before we start, and nothing is payable in advance.

Tell us what the three questions are for you.

The marriage, the money, the children — where you actually stand on each. We will tell you which proceedings that involves, what papers have to be ready, and whether the part you need is a document or an advocate. We prepare papers for either side and we take no commission from anybody on the directory.

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