NEW DELHI: The Chhattisgarh high court has held that a wife cannot be denied her claim for stridhan merely because she is unable to produce bills or receipts for the articles, observing that such documents are typically kept by the husband’s family after marriage.A division bench of Justices Parth Prateem Sahu and Sachin Singh Rajput dismissed a husband’s appeal against a family court order directing him to return his wife’s stridhan articles or pay her Rs 2 lakh if they could not be returned, in its July 6 order.What was the dispute aboutAccording to the court order, the couple got married in June 2017 and have a daughter, who now lives with the mother. The wife filed an application under Section 27 of the Hindu Marriage Act, alleging that after their daughter’s birth, her husband and his family harassed her over dowry and made derogatory remarks about the birth of a girl child. She also claimed her husband got her to pay towards a car loan by promising to bear the liability himself, but the instalments were later deducted from her account. She filed a police complaint at the Mahila Police Station in Bhilai in December 2021.She told the family court that her stridhan — household articles, gold and silver ornaments, and cash — remained with her husband, and sought its return or, alternatively, Rs 4 lakh as its value.The husband denied the allegations. He said the car loan was taken with mutual consent and that he had been repaying it since their separation. He argued there was no documentary proof — no bills or receipts — to show that any stridhan had been given to him, and said his wife still had access to the household cupboard.The family court framed the issue of whether the stridhan articles were given to the wife at the time of marriage, and ruled in her favour. It directed the husband to return the articles or pay Rs 2 lakh if he could not. The husband challenged this order before the high court, arguing that the family court’s findings were “perverse, erroneous and contrary to the evidence on record.”What did the court sayThe high court rejected the husband’s argument, holding that the absence of bills or receipts does not by itself prove that no stridhan was given.The bench noted that the common practice is that household articles, gold and silver ornaments, utensils and other customary items are given to the bride as stridhan at the time of marriage. On the husband’s argument that no bills or receipts were produced, the court said it was “not persuaded by the submissions so made because, normally, after the marriage, the bills and other receipts are kept by the wife’s in-laws.“The court also pointed out that once the wife had specifically listed the stridhan articles in her application, “the husband was required to specifically deny the said averments,” which he failed to do.On the amount, the court agreed with the family court’s reasoning that since the marriage was eight years old, the value of most stridhan articles — apart from the gold ornaments — would have depreciated over time. It therefore upheld the decision to fix the payment at Rs 2 lakh instead of the Rs 4 lakh claimed by the wife, if the articles themselves could not be returned.“Merely because the wife could not produce the bills or receipts, despite having categorically stated that the same were in the possession of her in-laws, it cannot be inferred that the stridhan articles, including the gold and silver ornaments and other household articles required for day-to-day family life, were not given at the time of marriage,” the court further observed.Holding that the family court’s findings were not perverse or against the evidence, the high court dismissed the husband’s appeal and affirmed the order directing him to return the stridhan articles or pay Rs 2 lakh in lieu of them.
