How SC saved a young marriage through persuasion & cajoling
Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: 05.08.2021
The Supreme Court on Wednesday saved a tottering young marriage by cajoling the husband to withdraw all cases against his spouse, while also telling him to give his wife a dignified place in his house or face arrest and get lodged in jail.
The couple, estranged for nearly four years after the wife was thrown out of her matrimonial home a month after the marriage owing to insufficient dowry, readily agreed to live together. The wife in the last couple of hearings stoutly declined hints from the husband’s counsel for dissolution of marriage. “Why should I give divorce? I want to live with him in a dignified way. I still love him,” the wife had told a bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Surya Kant.
On Wednesday, the bench, which had found the husband and his parents to be the trouble makers, was categorical in administering threats of possible incarceration to the husband alongside advice that generally comes from family seniors. Communicating in Hindi with the husband Ravi Kiran Rakesh, Justice Kant said, “You must go to her house and bring her back to the matrimonial home. Both of you must forget the past and start your married life afresh.”
The bench advised the woman to withdraw her case against the husband and parents-in-law.
The bench asked the husband and the wife to withdraw cases lodged by them against each other and then file affidavits specifying the applications filed in trial courts in this regard. However, the bench was not finished with the husband, and said, “You must behave properly in future. Otherwise, you will go to jail.” The husband sounded desperate to escape possible arrest and repeatedly said that he would withdraw all cases against her.
Turning to the husband’s counsel, senior advocate and former HC judge Anjana Prakash, CJI Ramana said, “With your experience and background, you should have settled the dispute in your chamber rather than getting the husband to continue with litigation.”
Prakash agreed and said she did try. “But, these days the young people watch so many soap operas, which keeps playing on their mind.”
The Jharkhand high court had refused anticipatory bail to the husband, noticing that the wife was tortured for dowry at the matrimonial home. It also noted that immediately after the wife lodged a dowry complaint, the husband had filed a suit for dissolution of marriage. August 31, last year, the SC was told by the husband’s counsel that there was a possibility of settlement of the matrimonial dispute. It allowed the parties to work towards settlement while protecting the husband from arrest.
You must go to her house and bring her back to the matrimonial home. Both of you must forget the past and start your married life afresh
JUSTICE SURYA KANT
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