Yesterday, I was waiting for my turn in the Supreme Court when a lady advocate appeared as petitioner in person, in her own divorce case. The Hon’ble Bench was really miffed by the arguments of the petitioner (wife) as on the last occasion the Supreme Court had ordered and settled for a particular amount of alimony to which the petitioner had agreed upon.
The status report was filed in Family Court as well. But now the petitioner wife wasn’t ready to settle. That irritated the SC bench; it said it was going to dismiss the whole petition and the wife would have to return the amount she had taken as part alimony; and both parties would need to contest the divorce case in Family Court. That made the petitioner wife rethink. She readily apologised and agreed to finish the matter with the rest of the alimony amount left.
This gives us a hint of how divorce and dowry matters are being misused to extort extra money, by stretching litigations to harass the husband and his family and depriving needy women of their rights.
Just a few days ago, a very unfortunate incident took place in Mumbai where a husband, namely Atul Subhash, committed suicide. Subhash in his suicide letter said he was being continuously harassed by his wife and her family and the courts’ prejudiced trial. In another recent matter in the Supreme Court, the Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prasanna emphasised a few points in their order. The Bench made it clear that the purpose of giving maintenance to wife was not to punish the husband. We want that the wife and children can live a respectable life, that’s all, it said.
In another case, the Supreme Court issued stern warning against abusing the laws in marital dispute cases. The Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna said these laws cannot be used as a “tool to unleash personal vendetta”. Recently I was engaged with a case where the only child of parents was martyred during fighter jet training. The daughter-in-law (who was on bad terms with the husband immediately before death) took all the compensatory money and property given by the Indian Air Force. She also sent a legal recovery notice to the martyr’s parents over some amount which was saved in the parents’ bank account.
Now the old parents are contesting the case far, far away from their home. In my opinion, genuine cases are kept remaining lis pendis (pending in the court) and women who already are empowered and well settled are using these laws arbitrarily in their favour. The poor females from lower section of society in terms of finances and who are actual victims don’t dare to call for their rights under these laws and they keep mum over their plight.
The solution for these kinds of harassment of both the parties are to introduce the prenuptial agreement system before the marriage, just like in many western countries. A prenuptial system, or prenup, is an agreement or a contract between a couple which they sign before solemnising the marriage to outline and decide how their assets, debts and liabilities will be divided if they separate in future. Modern times require modern solutions. It’s time to move on and look towards modern divorce laws of the West.
(The author is advocate, Supreme Court of India)
