Observing that it is the only husband’s who are liable to provide the wife’s maintenance and not the in-laws, a Delhi court has ruled that women cannot claim a pie of their in-laws’ property.
While dismissing the plea of a woman, Mamta Kapoor, additional sessions judge R.K. Gauba said, “Merely because the girl had lived in the property in question in the past, the said property does not become her shared household.”
Seeking maintenance, Mamta had filed a petition under section 12 of the Domestic Violence Act, demanding right of residence in her in-laws house.
The court observed, “It is quite possible that the husband and wife may have lived together in dozens of places such as with the husband’s father, his uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces etc. If the interpretation canvassed by the girl is accepted, all these houses of the husband’s relatives will be shared households and the wife can well insist in living in all these houses.”
Mamta and Suresh got married in 2001 and two babies were born out of their wedlock. Taking objection to the fact that Mamta has not made her husband Suresh party in the petition to claim maintenance, ASJ Gauba said, “It must also be seen that the respondent has not made any attempt to claim right of residence from her husband. The husband has somehow evaporated from the scene.”