A woman can assert right over spouse property

The supreme court had sought to redress the grievance of several aged in-laws who had been harassed by their daughters-in-law over their property.

Sympathy or sentiment can be invoked only in favour a person who is entitled to it, observed the apex court, while quashing several criminal cases filed by a daughter-in-law against her in-laws living in Gujarat.

A bench of justices SB Sinha and VS Sirpurkar also held that maintenance of a married wife, during subsistence of the marriage, is on the husband. It is a personal obligation. The obligation to maintain a daughter-in-law arises only when the husband has died, the court added.

Such an obligation can also be met from the properties of which the husband is a co-sharer and not otherwise. For invoking the said provision, the husband must have a share in the property. The property in the name of the mother-in-law can neither be a subject matter of attachment nor during the life time of the husband, his personal liability to maintain his wife (mother-in-law) can be directed to be enforced against such property, Judges had ruled.