Legal Reference Library

 A professionally qualified woman should be able to take care of herself, the Delhi high court has said, denying maintenance demanded by a chartered accountant from her estranged husband. "The appellant/wife, who is a qualified chartered accountant and has been in the profession since 2003, need not be granted interim maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act," a bench of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Pratibha Rani observed while rejecting her plea. The wife had appealed against a trial court order that awarded her Rs 22,900 a month towards maintenance of her two children but declined to award an interim maintenance to her, pointing out that she was a chartered accountant with sufficient means to maintain herself. According to the woman's petition, the duo had got married in 2005 in Delhi. The estranged husband, an electrical engineer, runs his own business. He filed for divorce owing to "differences". The wife had sought an interim maintenance...

In Krishna Bhattacharjee V.  Sarathi Choudhury, 2015 scc 1229, 2015 while dealing with a question whether the retention of stridhan by the husband or any other family members is a continuing offence or not, the division bench comprising of Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant, JJ held that the concept of “continuing offence” gets attracted from the date of deprivation of stridhan, for neither the husband nor any other family members can have any right over the stridhan and they remain the custodians The respondent contended before the Magistrate that the claim is barred by time and that she should have claimed it prior to their judicial separation. The Magistrate admitted the fact that the respondent and the appellant had entered into the wedlock. The magistrate treated her as an aggrieved person. But concluded that no domestic relationship existed between the parties and hence she is not entitled to file the application under Sec 12 of the 2005 Act. The Court taking reference of vario...

A woman has inalienable rights over stridhan and she can claim it even after separation from her husband, the Supreme Court has ruled, saying that denying it would amount to domestic violence making the husband and in-laws liable to face criminal prosecution. As per Hindu law, stridhan is whatever a women receives during her lifetime including all movable, immovable property, gifts etc received prior to marriage, at the time of marriage and during child birth. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant quashed the order of a trial court and Tripura High Court which had held that a woman cannot claim her stridhan after separation from her husband and criminal proceedings cannot be initiated against husband and in-laws for not handing over the properties. It pulled up the courts for dismissing the plea of a woman on the ground that she lost the right over stridhan after judicial separation with husband. The court said that the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act...