Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: forum non conveniens

Your question has two parts - one applies to US law and other to Indian Law. I shall not deal with US law as I am not competent to deal with the same. But as far as Indian courts are concerned there are judgements that if both parties have submitted to a foreign court - divorce granted by such foreign court on grounds, which are permissible under Hindu law would be valid and binding.

Your question is not amply clear as far as Indian law is concerned - a Petitioner is one who files Petition - therefore there is no question of Petitioner challenging the Jurisdiction he has to submit to Jurisdiction - submitting to Jurisdiction - for marriage laws as far as Indian law is concerned - is in favour of female litigant in family matters, you have not clarified whether Husband or Wife - who is the Petitioner.

Residency as far as marriage law is concerned has nothing to with domicile - it has a more realistic approach and is based on what is the intention of parties, which can be proved by circumstances.

Re: forum non conveniens

As per your query, I gather that both of you are willing to and in fact, are already attending the case in the Indian court. As such you do not need to ask the US court to stay or dismiss the suit pending before it. You can withdraw the petition from the US court and attend to your case in India.

As far as a decree of a foreign court is concerned, the Indian courts recognise a decree passed by a foreign court provided that the case was heard by a court of competent jurisdiction, the case was decided as per the Indian law, the respondent was given the notice of the case and the decree was not obtained by fraud.

Domicile includes an intention to stay at a place permanently. Since, on H1B visa you have a fixed tenure to stay in the US, you cannot be deemed to have a permanent intention to stay there and hence you cannot be domiciled in the US on your H1B visa.