Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has allowed recording of evidence through videoconferencing in a matrimonial dispute case. The facility was approved about a year ago.
Justice M.S. Ramachan-dra Rao observed that there was no reason to fault the recording of evidence through videoconferencing in matrimonial proceedings, whereas in criminal cases it was accepted with certain conditions.
The judge was dealing a case filed by US resident Sheelam Prameela who had challenged an order of a family court of Hyderabad which had rejected her plea to record evidence by videoconference from her residence in the US.
The trial court rejected Ms Prameela’s plea on the grounds of lack of infrastructure.
Ms Prameela said she could not come to the country as it would endanger her job. She said she was in Hyderabad in March 2018 for 21 days but the trial court had not completed recording evidence even though the High Court had ordered it.
She said she should not be compelled to leave her employment and stay in India to attend day-to-day hearings in the case.
Considering the facts and knowing that infrastructure was provided to civil courts, Justice Ramachandra Rao directed the trial court to record her evidence through videoconferencing.
“In a situation where one or both of the parties to a matrimonial proceeding is living abroad and is unable to come to India to give evidence on account of his/her employment there, and there is a risk of the party losing his/her employment if they were to return to India, it would be unjust to compel the party to give up her job there so that he/she can appear on every date of adjournment in the family court in India”, Justice Ramachandra Rao said on Saturday.
