Family Court
Hears dissolution, dower, maintenance, custody and related family matters.
The forum
Family Courts hear suits for dissolution of marriage and khula, dower and maintenance, custody and the other matters within the family jurisdiction. They sit in every district, and in many tehsils. Proceedings are meant to be quicker and less formal than ordinary civil litigation, and a reconciliation attempt sits inside the process rather than beside it. Guardianship of a child often runs in parallel before the Guardian Court on the same facts.
Where it sits
This court sits in every district, and in most tehsils. The cities below are the ones with the rest of the court structure around them, but a matter here can be anywhere in the country — which is why CaseMate carries every city and tehsil rather than a short list.
What a firm has to track
Family matters are the ones clients ring about most, because the subject is their own life. The firm that can say what happened this morning, today, is the firm that keeps the client — which is a diary question, not a client-care question. These matters generate more client contact than anything else in a practice, because the client is living the subject rather than owning it. Recording the outcome and the note the same morning is what lets the office answer a call at four o'clock without ringing the person who attended.
The date the court gives is a fact. Whoever is standing there records it in CaseMate before they leave the building, and the office acknowledges it — it does not wait to be approved.
The firm decides who goes to the next hearing, against the hearing itself. A matter at a distant bench is a travel arrangement, not a line in a list.
Every previous date, its outcome and the note taken at the time — so a partner can be answered without opening the file.
A hearing in the past with nothing recorded against it is the one thing a diary must never hide. CaseMate lists them separately.
Other courts in the same work
Start with today's list.
Set your firm up in a couple of minutes, enter the cases you are running this week, and let your associates report from court.