District Judge Sowaran Singh:
The Applications
These two applications were filed by the Defendant (husband) pursuant to Order 41 Rule 6 of the Rules of Court (‘Rules”) to strike out some paragraphs as well as exhibit pages of two affidavits filed by the Plaintiff (wife). Both applications were heard on the 13 January 2014. At the conclusion of the hearing the court dismissed both applications with costs to be in the cause.
In OSF 256/2013 (the OSF application) the husband wanted paragraphs 10 to 17, pages 26 to 186 and pages 240 to 468 of the wife’s affidavit filed on the 27 May 2013 in support of her Personal Protection Order (PPO) in SS xxx to be struck out pursuant to the Rules. This lengthy affidavit in question was marked as exhibit C and C1 (two volumes).
In SUM 8278/2013 (the summons application) the husband wanted paragraphs 6 to 15 and pages 28 to 84 of the wife’s affidavit filed on the 3 May 2013 to be struck out pursuant to the Rules. This affidavit by the wife was filed in support of her application for interim joint custody, care and control of their four children with supervised access to the husband in SUM xxx as well as for the husband to attend counselling. This application (the care application) by the wife was filed on the 3 May 2013. The affidavit in question was marked as exhibit D.
The Brief Facts
The parties married in June 2001. The wife was described as being a 38 year old xxx and the husband as being a 40 year old xxx with both having tertiary qualifications. They have four children all of whom are girls 11, 8, 5 and 3 years old. The wife filed for a divorce on the 5 April 2013 on account of the husband’s adultery and unreasonable behaviour.
On the same day 5 April 2013 the wife filed for a PPO for herself and their children in SS xxx.An Expedited Order (EO) was granted to her on the 11 April 2013. On the 20 April 2013 the wife left the matrimonial home with the children to live with her mother. On the 30 April 2013 the husband wrote a letter seeking unsupervised as well as overnight access to the children (through his counsel). On the 16 July 2013 in SUM xxx the husband filed for joint custody with interim care and control of the children and reasonable access to the wife. Alternatively he asked for unsupervised access to the children including overnight access. There was also another prayer in which he asked that one of the children be assessed by a child psychiatrist for a report on the child’s mental well-being.
The Husband’s Submissions in Brief
In his submissions (marked as exhibit A), the husband urged the court to strike out those portions of the two affidavits he had identified or the entire affidavits. The court need not go into any particular detail in describing here the offending materials except to observe that these were essentially related to pornography. Many of them showed explicit scenes of naked couples having sex; various objects (including a chain) being used on or inserted into the person of the female; group of men participating in sexual scenes involving female(s) some of whom were dressed in clothes resembling school uniforms, etc.
The main ground that the husband relied on was that these materials were...
