05/08/2026
PLJ 2026 Lahore 474
فیملی مقدمات میں غیر ضروری اور طویل جرح پر لاہور ہائیکورٹ کا انتہائی سخت ردعمل۔
The law is settled that a witness when subjected to unduly lengthy cross-examination, which also consists of many irrelevant and misdirected questions, the contradiction, if any, can lose its significance. Such type of cross-examination is repeatedly discouraged.
The purpose of cross-examination is to assist the Court in bringing the truth to light by disclosing or clarifying matters which witnesses may wish to conceal or confuse from motives of partisanship…Effective cross-examination could be confined within a narrow compass. The question must not go beyond reasonable limits.
The procedure of recording evidence is given in section 11 of the West Pakistan Family Courts Act-1964 (the ‘Family Court Act’). The second proviso of section 11 of the Family Court Act clearly provides that the Family Court may forbid any question which it regards as indecent, scandalous or frivolous or which appears to it to be intended to insult or annoy or be needlessly offensive in form.
Not merely indecent and scandalous questions are prohibited but at the same time frivolous, insulting, annoying and offensive questions can also be forbidden by the learned Family Court. The Family Court is also empowered under section 11(3-A) of the Family Court Act by itself to put questions to witnesses for the purposes of elucidation of any point which it considers material in the case. These specific provisions of law are intended to ensure that the cases arising out of the family disputes or for the guardianship of the minors should be settled while remaining within certain limits. Even otherwise, the law of evidence restricts the litigants or their pleaders from exposing the witnesses to undignified treatment and the witnesses must not suffer from humiliation or intimidation at the hands of the learned advocates for parties. The Courts, when so required, must interfere, which possess ample powers to provide protection to the witnesses when they are facing such situation.
At this stage, I would also like to highlight growing tendency, in the cases emanating out of the family jurisdiction and related matters amongst the parties of unduly prolonging the cases by (i) deviating from the law of pleadings, (ii) introducing the witnesses and evidence having no relevance and (iii) lengthening the examination, like in the present one. This as a result is defeating the very object and purpose of promulgating the statutes on these subjects. The Family Court Act is intended to establish the Courts for expeditious settlement and resolution of disputes relating to marriage, family affairs and for the matters connected therewith. The learned Family Courts are expected by legislature to resolve the disputes within six months from the date of institution. Guidelines have been given by the legislature for every step of the proceedings, starting from the pleadings.
The word “material” has been inserted in section 7(2) of the Family Court Act through the West Pakistan Ordinance No. X of 1966 dated 04.04.1966. Sub-section 2 of section 7 of the Family Court Act reads that the plaint shall contain all material facts relating to the dispute and shall contain a Schedule giving the number of witnesses intended to be produced in support of the plaint, the names and addresses of the witnesses and brief summary of the facts to which they would depose. Likewise, Order VI-Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure-1908 provides that every pleading shall contain, and contain only; a statement in a concise form of the material facts on which the party pleading relies for his claim or defence, as the case may be, but not the evidence by which they are to be proved, and shall when necessary, be divided into paragraphs, numbered consecutively.
Somehow, it is becoming more common that the disputants in such matter and their pleaders are going beyond the material facts and deviating from the real disputes on the basis of which the parties do want to rest their claim(s) and they want to seek relief or deny it on the other hand. It is a principle of law that in pleadings each and every detail is not required to be mentioned. It is evidence which proves the pleadings. Mere mentioning of material facts in the pleadings is sufficient regarding which the parties are required to produce their evidence at the trial stage.
It is observed that the Family Court Act being the special law requires firm adherence, otherwise the essence and effectiveness of the law will be frustrated. The learned Family / Guardian Courts, therefore, are required to actively curb the undesireable delays instead of becoming silent spectators and permitting the parties or their pleader to frustrate very purpose of special enactment(s).
Writ Petition No. 64981 of 2025
Harris Rasheed and another Versus The Learned Guardian Judge
*M
