New Delhi: The Supreme Court has reiterated that a husband has no control over his wife’s 'Stridhan' (woman's property) and he may use it during the time of his distress, but he has a moral obligation to return it to his wife. A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta directed a man to pay Rs 25 lakhs to a woman in return for her lost gold. The woman had claimed that 89 sovereigns of gold were gifted to her by her family at the time of marriage, and after the wedding, her father gave a cheque for Rs 2 lakhs to her husband.
The bench said 'Stridhan' property does not become a joint property of the wife and the husband has no title or independent dominion over the property as its owner. "Properties gifted to a woman before marriage, at the time of marriage or at the time of bidding farewell or thereafter are her 'Stridhan' properties. It is her absolute property with all rights to dispose at her pleasure. The husband has no control over her 'Stridhan' property”, said the bench, while citing a previous verdict of the court.
It added that the husband may use it during the time of his distress, but he has a moral obligation to restore the same or its value to his wife. "Divorce, majorly, in Indian society is still considered a stigma, and any delay in commencement of legal proceedings is quite understandable because of the attempts made to have the disputes and differences resolved; more so, in a case of the present nature, when the appellant was faced with the imminent prospect of termination of her second marriage," said the bench, in a verdict delivered on April 24.
The apex court said the very concept of marriage rests on the inevitable mutual trust of the spouses, which conjugality necessarily involves and to assume that the woman from day one did not trust the husband is rather improbable. "The High Court, thus, failed to draw the right inference from facts, which appear to have been fairly established. That apart, we have neither been shown nor do we know of any binding precedent that for a claim of return of 'Stridhan' articles or money equivalent thereof to succeed, the wife has to prove the mode and manner of such acquisition”, it said.
The bench said the woman had successfully initiated action towards recovery of money in lieu of 89 sovereigns of gold, which in 2009 was valued at Rs 8.90 lakhs. "Mere upholding of the decree of the Family Court at this distance of time, without anything more, would bring about injustice to her. Bearing in mind the passage of time, the escalation in cost of living, and the interest of equity and justice, we deem it fit in the exercise of the power conferred by Article 142 of the Constitution of India to award to the appellant a sum of Rs 25,00,000," the bench said.
In 2011, the family court held that the husband and his mother had indeed misappropriated the appellant's gold jewellery. However, the Kerala High Court while partly setting aside the relief granted by the family court, held that the woman had not been able to establish the misappropriation of gold jewellery by the husband and his mother.
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