Read Time: 13 minutes

Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on April 24, 2024 emphasised that properties gifted to a woman before, and after marriage or at the time of bidding of farewell or thereafter are her stridhan properties upon which the husband has no control at all.

"It is her absolute property with all rights to dispose at her own pleasure. The husband has no control over her stridhan property. He may use it during the time of his distress but nonetheless he has a moral obligation to restore the same or its value to his wife. Therefore, stridhan property does not become a joint property of the wife and the husband and the husband has no title or independent dominion over the property as owner thereof," a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said allowing an appeal by a woman against the Kerala High Court's judgement which set aside the family court's order.

"Bearing in mind the passage of time, the escalation in cost of living, and in the interest of equity and justice," the bench used its power under Article 142 of the Constitution to award Rs 25 lakh as financial recompense to the woman, presently aged 50 years, for her future life.

The family court had in 2011 allowed the appellant to recover Rs 8,90,000 as the value of 89 sovereigns of gold from the respondents, also directed her to recompense to her Rs 2,00,000 with 6% interest per annum from the date of institution of the proceedings till realisation within three months.

The woman claimed on the first night of marriage, the husband took all her jewellery and entrusted it his mother for safekeeping. She claimed all her jewellery were thus misappropriated for pre-existing financial liabilities.

The family court also dissolved the 2003 marriage of the parties, who had separated due to differences in 2009. It was a second marriage for both the parties.

The High Court, however, in 2022 held appellant had not been able to establish misappropriation of gold jewellery by the respondents. It also said there was no documentary evidence to prove the acquisition of gold jewellery. But the HC directed the husband to return Rs two lakh to her.

After hearing the parties, the bench said, "We have little doubt in our mind that the impugned judgment is legally unsustainable. This is because of an erroneous approach adopted by the High Court by demanding a standard of proof as if it were seized of a criminal trial as well as by basing its findings on assumptions and suppositions which, by no stretch of imagination, can be said to be borne from the evidence on record."

Though the judgment of the family court delved deep into the evidence to arrive at reasonable findings, "we have noted with some degree of distress that the High Court criticised the judgment as one rendered without taking into consideration the factual foundations of the case and by jumping to conclusions."

The bench pointed out in civil cases including matrimonial disputes of a civil nature, the standard of proof is not proof beyond reasonable doubt ‘but’ the preponderance of probabilities tending to draw an inference that the fact must be more probable.

The High Court have attributed lack of bona fide on the part of the appellant solely on account of the petition being filed in 2009 although cohabitation of the spouses had ended in 2006 itself. The High Court erred to take into consideration the explanation proffered by the appellant that substantial amount of time after separation was spent to attempt reconciliation; and it is with the fervent hopes of such attempts at reconciliation succeeding that legal proceedings were not initiated, it said.

"Matters of matrimony can rarely be said to be simple or straightforward; hence, human reaction as per a mechanical timeline before the sacred bond of marriage is severed is not what one would expect. 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," the bench said.

The bench noted the High Court held the appellant’s failure to lead documentary evidence to support purchase of 89 sovereigns of gold, which she allegedly brought with her to the matrimonial home, as fatal.

"To our mind, the approach is entirely indefensible," the bench said.

"For a person of ordinary prudence, is it reasonable to expect that a woman, who is freshly married and is intending to live in the same house and under the same roof with her husband, to keep her personal belongings like jewellery, etc under her own lock and key, thus, showing a spirit of distrust to the husband right after the moment she gets married? The answer cannot but be in the negative," the bench said.

"On the contrary, the circumstance that the husband had volunteered to take custody of the jewellery for safekeeping with his mother appears to be more plausible than the rival version considering the probabilities that are associated with similar such situations. The very concept of marriage rests on the inevitable mutual trust of the spouses, which conjugality necessarily involves. To assume that the appellant from day one did not trust the first respondent is rather improbable. The High Court, thus, failed to draw the right inference from facts which appear to have been fairly established," the bench added.

The court also found that the High Court imposed a greater burden on the appellant than was warranted. 

"It was further assumed by the High Court that it was not believable for a newly married woman to be deprived of all gold jewellery on the first night itself. We have no reason to agree with such a conclusion drawn by the High Court. Greed is a powerful motivator and has spurred humans to commit crimes far dastardlier. We, thus, do not find it outside the realm of human possibility for a husband to commit against his wife such unacceptable and undesirable acts, which were alleged. In the light of the same, it can hardly be disputed that the appellant was indeed in possession of at least 50, if not 89, sovereigns of gold jewellery when she crossed the threshold of the matrimonial home on the fateful night of 4th May, 2003," the bench said.