Man not expected to give up job to go back to his wife: Bombay HC

A man is not expected to give up his job to join his wife for complying with a court direction ordering restitution of conjugal rights, while his estranged wife stays put at a separate residence

A man is not expected to give up his job to join his wife for complying with a court direction ordering restitution of conjugal rights, while his estranged wife stays put at a separate residence. The Bombay high court has held that the wife, in such a situation, is required to join her husband at their home where she lived with him before leaving him.

A division bench of justice VK Tahilramani and justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi upheld the view taken by the family court and rejected wife’s appeal. (HT)

The husband, in this case, lived in Indianapolis in the United States even before his marriage in August 1996 with an Andheri resident. After the marriage, the couple began living in the US.

Later, differences cropped up between the two and the wife, 45, returned to Mumbai. The 52-year-old US resident in 2006 filed for divorce. His plea was opposed by the wife who filed a plea for restitution of conjugal rights. In September 2009, a family court dismissed the husband’s plea and ordered him to resume living together as pleaded by his estranged wife.

In 2012, the husband again approached the family court at Bandra, seeking divorce on the ground that cohabitation had not been resumed even after the September 2009 order. He claimed though he made sincere efforts to bring his wife back to the US, she did not respond and resultantly cohabitation could not be resumed.

A division bench of justice VK Tahilramani and justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi upheld the view taken by the family court and rejected wife’s appeal.

It said the husband has been residing in USA since prior to the marriage and after marriage the wife has cohabited with him there. Even at the time of filing of the claim for restitution of conjugal rights she knew that he was still residing in the US. “Therefore, there was absolutely no question of the respondent (husband) coming to India and resuming cohabitation with her at Mumbai,” said the bench.

“It is not a case, as rightly observed by the family court, that the respondent has intentionally left India after passing of the decree of restitution of conjugal rights and settled in USA in order to avoid the execution of such decree,” the high court said while rejecting the wife’s appeal.