The bench said this while allowing a plea filed by a woman challenging the July 2021 order of a family court in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, which had directed her to go back to her matrimonial home and perform her marital obligation
Overturning a family court’s order, the Gujarat High Court has said that a woman cannot be forced to cohabit with her husband and establish conjugal rights with him, even by a court’s decree.
The bench said this while allowing a plea filed by a woman challenging the July 2021 order of a family court in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, which had directed her to go back to her matrimonial home and perform her marital obligation.
The Gujarat HC’s division bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Niral Mehta said the decision in a suit for the restitution of conjugal rights does not depend entirely on the husband’s right, and the family court should also consider whether it would make it inequitable for it to compel the wife to live with her husband.
The couple’s ‘Nikah’ was performed on May 25, 2010 at Palanpur in Banaskantha and they had a son in July 2015.
As per the plea, the woman, a qualified nurse working at a civil hospital, took her son and left her husband and in-laws in July 2017, after they compelled her to migrate to Australia and take up a job there.
The woman in her plea said she was against the idea and hence, left her matrimonial home with her son.
As per the woman’s husband, she left home “without any lawful ground”.
When persuasion to bring her back failed, her husband moved the family court, which passed a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights in favour of the husband.
The HC observed that the family court arrived at the conclusion “based on conjecture that being a working woman, she could not come up with her household responsibilities and therefore, thought fit to walk out of her matrimonial home on a lame excuse of being harassed by her husband and other family members”.
