Respected Lawyer,
I would like to know the rights of a woman separated from her husband
Here are some details:
Family members year of birth
Husband (h) 1958
Wife (w) 1961
Daughter (1) 1988
Daughter (2) 1994
Husband’s sister 1961
This is to give an idea of the age of the various people involved in this case.
Certain events as they took place:
In 1996: husband , then 38 years old. Married since 12 years. Falls in love with a 20 year old girl. Wife learns about husband’s affair from friends. Wife furious. After lot of arguments and fights, husband agrees to quit relation with young girl. But trust has been broken in wife. Doubt has set in.
1996 to January 1999, wife goes to stay with her family 3 times for 1 month each over 3 years. Unstable and unhappy relation.
1999: In February, (h) slaps wife. Wife leaves house with daughters and stays with father. (mother has expired long back). (h) falls in love with a work collegue (B) who is a divorcee and who lives in Puna. While (w) with father, (h) brings (B) to stay in their home. All family members ask (h) not to do that.
Dec 2000: after 20 months of separation, husband and wife brought together with family mediation. Husband continues with his relation with (B) and meets her on a regular basis. Only condition wife puts to husband for reunion was that husband leaves this relation. He disagrees. Anyhow they live together. The coming together lasted only 2 years. Hushand continued to meet (B) always under work pretext. (B) came to (h) town but wife was never informed about the same. But (B) was seen in town by wife.
2001 : husband’s mentally abnormal with slight polio in left hand and leg, sister (S) comes to live with family.( S) used fowl language towards wife. Wife bore all silently but painfully so that the family lives together. Physical violence was often used to quiten the sister by her brother. Wife intervened to save the mentally abnormal sister.
2003: Unable to bear all this, wife quit with children.
2003 june onwards , wife with daughters lived in an apartment given to her by her father. She was given a financial help to begin earning her livelihood.
2003 fight between brother ( that is the husband) and sister entailed that the brother hit the sister so hard that she fell from stairs and broke her hip bone.
Wife had told husband in the past to control his temper. He never did anything.
2003 - 2014: Husband’s work takes him all over the world and is 6 to 8 months out of india for work. in order to be able to work, husband had to engage a woman to look after his sister at night because sister is not capable of living alone. Due to this husband and the woman who looked after the sister have got emotionally attached. Now sister is in an institute since over 1 year . The woman whom husband has engaged and has worked for him for the past 10 years comes to sleep in his house .
Wife has requested husband to give a divorce. He says that he will not. He says that wife has quit on her own accord, so she has to come back herself. He will not call her. The truth is that he does not want her.
Wife has not gone to the court because the children love their father and may need to testify against him. THis was thought not right by the wife. Also children needed to be at peace to grow up. Children have met their father on a regular basis during the whole length of separation. Father loves children. Now father is paying for the daughters’ education, who are both studying abroad. The daughters love their father.
Main grudge of husband is against his father in law. From his point of view, the financial help of the wife’s father has taken his family away from him. Husband is not willing to understand that a wife has enough of a husband who is short tempered and a womanizer. Even after 20 months of separation it was the wife’s father who kept a maternal uncle as a negociater and brought the daughter back to husband. But husband continued to meet the girl (B) under work pretext. Even when company paid for his stay while travel, he lived in the girl (B’s) apartment. Husband gave clothes away to this girl (B) even when they were given for wife by husband’s mother. And husband claims that it is only a work relation. This happened between 1999 and 2005.
When wife asks reason to husband why he does not want to give divorce, he says that his parents were divorced and that is why he does not want to give it. There is no rhyme or rhythm in this logic. It is one’s acts that leads to a certain state of life.
Question: Can the wife ask for divorce?
On what grounds?
What are her legal inheritance.
Following are the assets in joint names:
One house fetching rent
One house in which the husband lives.
In 1999-2000, wife received old age pension from the swiss government where the couple lived from 1985 to 1994. Half the amount should have come to wife. Husband said that wife never worked during that period. She stayed only at home so she is not eligible to that sum. But the sum is a total of Rs 12 lakhs in the present day were it to earn 10 % interest from 2000 till date.
Husband is not willing to give anything without fight. So what do you advice. How should the wife proceed to get her divorce and what are her rights.
How do the legal proceedings take place. Can the wife fight the case herself?
Thank you,
With warmth
nayana
