Family Court Orders Woman To Return Back To Husband, Gujarat HC Says, “One Cannot Force Wife To Cohabit And Establish Conjugal Rights”

I think it was common sense that no one in India can legally be forced to do something they do not want to. Now, whether or not people are still pushed into things in our country is a different issue. But then there is news of people in the law who are pushing people to do stuff against their will. The other day I wrote about a police officer who forcefully confined a woman for wanting to leave her husband (personal choice went out the window). Anyway, here is a similar case of a wife who was forced to cohabit with her estranged husband when she clearly did not want to.

The couple is a minority couple from Banaskantha district. The woman (who is a government nurse) and her husband had a son together. She left her husband taking their minor son with her to go live with her parents. The Ahmedabad woman accused the in-laws of harassing her to move to Australia because her sibling are already settled there. 

The husband then approached a family court appealing for reinstating his conjugal rights and the court gave an order to the wife to live with the husband. The woman challenged the husband in the high court. The family court’s order was repealed by the bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Niral Mehta.

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The high court referred to Order XXI Rule 32(1) of the Civil Procedure Code. According to reports they said, “no person can force a female or his wife to cohabit and establish conjugal rights. If the wife refuses to cohabit, in such a case, she cannot be forced by a decree in a suit to establish conjugal rights”.

Well, I genuinely thought this was something that didn’t need to be said. It is obvious that if one doesn’t want to continue staying in the relationship, they should not and cannot be forced. Good on the woman for going to the high court and demanding justice for herself.

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