IN A significant verdict, the Supreme Court held on Tuesday that a qualified woman’s decision to pursue her career, and ensure a stable and safe environment for her child cannot be branded as “cruelty” or “desertion”. The top court said the “feudalistic” approach of a family court in holding a woman’s pursuit of her professional career as a dentist as “cruelty” and “desertion” was “regressive” and “ultra-conservative”. The family court’s decision was upheld by the Gujarat High Court. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta set aside the “regressive” findings of the courts below and said a wife’s professional identity is not subject to an “implied spousal veto”.

 

Deciding the cross-pleas filed by the estranged wife and the husband, the bench took note of the submissions of the woman that she was no longer hopeful of a patch-up and upheld the decree of divorce granted by the courts below on the ground of an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and not on the basis of cruelty and desertion by her. It also took note of the fact that the man has remarried and refused to allow the husband’s plea that his wife be prosecuted for the offence of perjury. It, however, expunged the observations made by the family court against the woman with very strong observations. “We are well into the 21st century and yet an attempt by a qualified woman to pursue her professional career and to secure a safe and stable environment for the upbringing of her child has been treated as an act of cruelty and desertion by the courts below,” Justice Mehta, who authored the verdict, said. The bench criticised the observations of the family court, which were affirmed by the high court, and said those are “not only legally unsustainable but also deeply disquieting”.