Deserted, can woman claim right to reside at in-laws’?

Source: Times of India dated 29.08.2019

By Amit Anand Choudhary. New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine whether a woman deserted by her husband could claim residential right in her in-laws’ house where she had been living after marriage?

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, M M Shantanagoudar and Ajay Rastogi issued notice to the Centre asking whether residential right could be given to a woman under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act on a plea filed by a Muslim woman who alleged that her husband her deserted her in 2004 and her in-laws threw her out of her matrimonial house.

Petitioner Shabnam Ahmed, a mother of three, claimed that her husband went to the UK 15 years ago and did not come back. She claimed that her husband divorced her illegally by pronouncing triple talaq in 2007 on phone and her in-laws threw her out along with her daughter. Her two other children are still living with her in-laws.

Shabnam, 40, had first approached the trial court seeking residential right in the house but her plea was dismissed in 2018 and she approached the apex court directly against the trial court order.

Justifying filing the petition in the SC instead of moving an appeal in the high court, senior advocate R B

Singhal and lawyer Nilofar Khan told the bench that Shabnam’s plea for residential right was rejected by the trial court by relying on an SC judgment of 2007.

They urged the court to reexamine the verdict as the provision pertaining to residential right was narrowly interpreted and was affecting the rights of women in matrimonial disputes. In 2007, the SC had said the wife was not entitled to seek residential right if the house in which she lived with her husband belonged to the in-laws.

Singhal told the court that there was difference of opinion among HCs on residential right claimed by the wife in a shared household belonging to the in-laws and requested the bench to adjudicate the issue to end contradictions. He said the 2007 verdict was against the spirit and objective of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.

The petitioner claimed that she was forced to live hand-to-mouth after being thrown out of her matrimonial house and was surviving on the support of her friends, including her lawyer, as her parents were no more. She said her husband had remarried and her in-laws cut off ties with her and refused to provide any help on the ground that they had disowned their son. She said she was forced to take legal recourse in 2013 after her parents died as she had no place to live.