| DOMICILE AND DIVORCE
By PRAVEEN DALAL 10/05/2005 At 07:06 A WORK TO ANALYSE THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMICILE. 
PRAVEEN DALAL, CONSULTANT AND ADVOCATE, DELHI HIGH COURT, INDIA The determination of domicile of an individual has a great legal significance. It helps in identifying the personal law by which an individual is governed in respect of various matters such as the essential validity of a marriage, the effect of marriage on the proprietary rights of husband and wife, jurisdiction in divorce and nullity of marriage, illegitimacy, legitimation and adoption and testamentary and intestate succession to moveables. The domicile is the legal relationship between an individual and a territory with a distinctive legal system, which invokes that system as his personal law. It is well settled that the domicile of a person is in that country in which he either has or is deemed by law to have his permanent home. The notion, which lies at the root of the concept of domicile, is that of permanent home. But it is basically a legal concept for the purpose of determining what is the personal law applicable to an individual and even if an individual has no permanent home, he is invested with a domicile by law. There are two main classes of domicile: domicile of origin that is communicated by operation of law to each person at birth, that is the domicile of his father or his mother according as he is legitimate or illegitimate and domicile of choice which every person or full age is free to acquire in substitution for that which he presently possesses. The domicile of origin attaches to an individual by birth while the domicile of choice is acquired by residence in a territory subject to a distinctive legal system, with the intention to reside there permanently or indefinitely. Domicile which is a private international law or conflict of laws concept identifies a person, in cases having a foreign element, with a territory subject to a single system of law, which is regarded as his personal law. In a recent decision by the Bombay High Court the Court held that if both the spouses were domiciled in India at the time of soleminisation of their marriage, then even if they lived abroad for a long duration the courts in India have the jurisdiction to decide the divorce proceedings filed by either of them. The Court further observed that once the provisions of Hindu Marriage Act are applicable then they will govern the legal position for all practical purposes including the divorce proceedings. Thus,domicile plays an imporatnt role in determining the matrimonial rights and liabilities of the parties. © Praveen Dalal. All rights reserved with the author. * Consultant and Advocate, Delhi High Court,India. Phone No: 9899169611.  http://praveen-dalal.blogspot.com/ http://perry4law.blogspot.com/ http://perry4law.rediffblogs.com/  Email:: pd37@rediffmail.com, perry4law@yaho.com
 URL:: http://praveen-dalal.blogspot.com/
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First, and the most unmistakably"legal", is adjustment of the troublecase (dispute, grievance, offence). When conflict on a square or other trouble arises, it has to be resolved or, at least kept to a tolerable low level, or else the group will disintegrate or its objectives will be frustrated or impaired.
The second, and perhaps the most important, job of domicile is the preventive channelling of conduct and expectations to avoid trouble. Thirdly, as needs, conditions, and relations change, so the conduct and expectations of the group have to be re-channelled. Fourthly, there is the job of"Arranging for the Say and the Manner of its Saying", that is, the advance allocation of authority and the regulation of authoritative procedure for decision. This job is prototypically the primary function of a"constitution" of a club, or organisation or a nation state. Where power and authority diverge, as any realist knows, there tends to be a gap between what in fact happens and what is meant to happen. Giving a realistic account of a constitution as a kind of institution is accordingly problematic.
Fifthly, there is a job of"providing Net Positive drive: Integration, Direction, Incentive for the whole.
It is explicitly linked positive and negative sanctions( rewards as well as punishments, for exampl)e within the conception of law-goverment.
Finally, in any group but especially in complex groups, techniques, skills, devices, practices, procedures and traditions need to be developed, institutionalized and adjusted if the firdt five needs or jobs are to be dealt with adequately or well...divorces on nullifying the codex of nation state!
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Postmodern jurist love legal pluralism...The crucial question of how to recontruct, in postmodern architecture of biases, the connections between the social and legal fields finds a highly vague answer:
interpenetrating, intertwined, integral, superposed, mutually constitutive, dialectical...we are left with ambiguity and confusion.
After all, this is the very charm of postmodernism.
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