In-laws have right to house despite son-wife discord: HC
Written by Express News Service | New Delhi | April 27, 2012 2:17 am
SUMMARY
Concerned about the harassment of a couple who were dragged into a marital dispute between their son and daughter-in-law,the Delhi High Court has said that trial courts must balance legal rights to ensure that the man’s parents can live in peace in their house.
Concerned about the harassment of a couple who were dragged into a marital dispute between their son and daughter-in-law,the Delhi High Court has said that trial courts must balance legal rights to ensure that the man’s parents can live in peace in their house.
Referring to the right of a woman to reside in her matrimonial house,Justice Kailash Gambhir said that although this right was brought on the statute book to protect the woman from being left in the lurch at the hands of her in-laws,it was a reality that the man’s old parents were often made to pay the price for the discord between the couple.
“One cannot or may I say should not shy away from the hard-hitting reality that it is not always the daughter-in-law who is berated,but at times the in-laws who are at the receiving end of the daughter in law’s cantankerousness,” said the court,while granting a decree of possession of a house in South Extension Part-II to a 61-year-old woman.
The court allowed her plea that her daughter-in-law could not claim her right to have possession of a room in the house as it belonged neither to her son nor her husband and the same was given to her (the complainant) by her mother as a wedding gift.
While passing the order in her favour,Justice Gambhir said: “It should not be for a moment consigned to oblivion that the parents-in-law have every right to live in peace in their own property and the right to property vested in them cannot be snatched away and used as a tool to harass them.”
Also expressing displeasure over the growing number of matrimonial cases filed by women against their parents-in-law,the court noted that such laws were being misused frequently.
“This court would like to observe that with a view to mitigating the oppression and inequality suffered by the fairer sex in this country from times immemorial,various woman-friendly laws have been enacted so as to empower the women. It is a bitter truth that where on one hand these progressive laws have led to amelioration and advancement of the cause of the woman in this country,at the same time on the other hand these liberalised statutes have been flagrantly misused,” added Justice Gambhir.
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