Property Right: The husband has no right on the wife’s property. The Supreme Court said in a historic judgment that a husband has no control over his wife’s ‘Stridhan’ (woman’s property). Although he can use it in times of crisis, he has a moral obligation to return it to his wife
Property Right: The husband has no right on the wife’s property. The Supreme Court said in a historic judgment that a husband has no control over his wife’s ‘Stridhan’ (woman’s property). Although he can use it in times of crisis, he has a moral obligation to return it to his wife. The Supreme Court has said this in a historic decision. The Supreme Court directed a man to pay Rs 25 lakh to a woman in exchange for her lost gold. In this case, the woman claimed that her family had gifted her 89 gold coins at the time of marriage. Also, after marriage, her father gave a check of Rs 2 lakh to her husband.
Husband and his mother kept all the wife’s jewelery
According to the woman, on the first night of the marriage, the husband took all her jewelery into his possession and handed it over to his mother under the guise of safekeeping. She alleged that the husband and his mother had misused all the jewelery to satisfy their already existing financial debts. The Family Court held in 2011 that the husband and his mother had rightly misused the gold jewelery of the appellant and she was entitled to be compensated for the loss caused by the misuse.
Wife’s property not joint property with husband
The Kerala High Court partially rejected the relief granted to the family court, saying the woman was not able to prove misappropriation of gold jewelery by her husband and his mother. After this the woman approached the Supreme Court against the High Court order. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that ‘Stridhan’ property is not joint property of wife and husband.
All these things are included in stridhan
Assets gifted to a woman before, at the time of marriage or at the time of separation or after her marriage are her stridhan assets. Citing an earlier judgment, the bench said that the husband has no control over his marital property. He may use it in his time of distress, but still he has a moral obligation to return the property or its value to his wife.
