Stridhan controversy: Supreme court gave a big and bold order on Stridhan controversy. Know the details below; Stridhan controversy: The Supreme Court has once again emphasized that a husband cannot control his wife’s ‘stridhan’ (woman’s property). Although he can use it in times of distress. He has a moral duty to return it to his wife.
Stridhan controversy
In a recent case, the court ordered a man to pay Rs 25 lakh to a woman as compensation for her lost gold. The woman claimed that her family had gifted her 89 sovereigns of gold during her marriage. Additionally, her father had given a cheque of Rs 2 lakh to her husband after the wedding. According to the woman, on their first night together, her husband took possession of all her jewelry. He handed it over to his mother for safekeeping. She alleged that both her husband and his mother misused the jewelry. They settled their existing financial debts. In 2011, the family court decided that the husband and his mother took the appellant’s gold jewelry without permission. They said that the appellant should be compensated for the loss caused by this action. Later, the Kerala High Court disagreed with some of the family court’s decision. They said that the woman couldn’t prove that the husband and his mother took her gold jewelry. The woman didn’t agree with the high court’s decision. She took her case to the Supreme Court.
Supreme court decision on Stridhan controversy
The Supreme Court judges, Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, explained that the wife’s stridhan property doesn’t belong to both the husband and wife. The husband doesn’t have any control or ownership over it. The judges also said that any property given to a woman before or during marriage, or even after, is her own property. She can do whatever she wants with it. The Supreme Court explained that marriage is a complex and delicate matter. It is not expected for people to react mechanically and immediately after the marriage ends. Divorce is still seen as a stigma in Indian society, so it is understandable that there may be delays in legal proceedings as people try to resolve their differences. In this particular case, the appellant was facing the end of her second marriage, so it was even more understandable that she took time to initiate legal action. Furthermore, the appellant did not present a claim to the Family Court that was beyond the time limit. Therefore, there was no reason to doubt her sincerity and question her intentions. The Supreme Court emphasized that marriage is built on trust between spouses. It is unlikely that the woman did not trust her husband from the beginning.
