There is no way that you can recover the money from her because it is a joint account.

Though you might have contributed more to that account, since it is a joint account, she has rightfully misappropriated the amount but her act cannot be considered as illegal.

You can write to the bank manager to cancel the account or you withdraw the balance amount from this account and dont deposit any more to this account in future.

Dont initiate any legal action for recovery on the words of some greedy people, you may not yield any fruit

or favorable result because legally you cannot restrict her from operating her account (even if it is joint), ence the swiping off the entire amount by her cannot be claimed as an illegal act.

You have to file a suit for recovery of money against her in which you will have to prove that the amount which you claiming was either deposited by you or was your income from any sources. In pith and essence you have to prove that the substantial portion of the amount in joint account was your income.

what were the operating instructions for joint account ?

2) it appearsa that any holder could with draw funds without consent of other holder

3) issue legal notice to wife to return funds misaapropriated by her to her individual account

4) if she refuses file suit to recover the money

1.Send a lawyer's notice i.e a notice from your lawyer.

2. Since you have the documentary evidence to prove that the money is joint account was substantially your income from all sources you should be able to recover the same from her, albeit you should seek injunction to restrain her from transferring the amount further from her account.

3. It takes around 2-3 years in the ordinary course for the trial to complete.

1) you cannot blame the bank as either of the account holder could withdraw funds from the account

2) legal notice has to be sent by lawyer

3) if property was bought in wife name and sale proceeds received by her she could have withdrawn funds from the joint account

4) you will have to file suit for recovery of money and prove that property bought out of your money

5) you can obtain interim reliefs in one year but suit would take years to be disposed of

6) suit had to be filed within period of 3 years

Dear Sir..

According to your words..this the clear case of fraud and cheating.....you are free to file many cases against your wife.....regarding your issue...first of all you can file cheating case...then after ...divorce petition ....

regards

Mob-No-[deleted]

2. What is legal notice? Can I send it myself or should I ask a lawyer to do that? What time period is an acceptable time period to ask for to return the money? What would be typical cost of sending legal notice?

You may consult a local lawyer with the evidences in your possession and seek his advise about proceeding with issuing a legal notice in this regard, sh shall guide you about it and also he may notify you the lawyer's fee for sending the legal notice.

The property was bought by my money 100% (I can prove it with documents as I was employed and she was not working at that time) but I bought it on wife's name. The reason I bought it on my wife's name was that I bought it so that parents of my wife can live in that property (so you can see I have been cheated royally) and they were only comfortable with living in a property in their daughter's name. I did the whole thing based on trust in 2007. When we sold this property in October 2016, as my wife was the only seller, she could have deposited the proceeds in her individual account or joint account. So when she deposited the proceeds into joint account, in a way, she is agreeing that the proceeds belongs to both of us (as the money to buy this property came 100% from my salary). Later she changed her mind and did this act and thats what I am trying to position as act of misappropriation. Am I thinking in the right direction?

The above reasoning may be logical and justified stand from your side, but the maintainability of the case wold not depend on this logical reasons because the pr operty though funded fully by you, it was bought on her name hence it becomes her own and absolute property and the sale proceeds from the disposal of the property hall be her own wealth and income.

Therefore your explanation or argument may not stand a ground to justify your claim.Law is above sentimental feelings.

I assume that if she does not return the money (50%) after sending legal notice, civil lawsuit can be filed. Generally how much time it takes to get a decision on this kind of civil lawsuit? What is the time limit in which one must file civil lawsuit?

The money recovery suit will take at least few yeas to get disposed.

The limitation for filing a money recovery suit is 3 years