This story is from May 31, 2019

Family court rules in man’s favour

A family court here recently held that a woman’s decision to abort her child without consent from her husband is cause for mental cruelty and can form grounds for divorce.
Family court rules in man’s favour
Representative image
PUNE: A family court here recently held that a woman’s decision to abort her child without consent from her husband is cause for mental cruelty and can form grounds for divorce.
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Subhash R Kafre, the presiding member of the court, allowed the petition of a Shankar Seth road resident seeking divorce on the grounds of cruelty after his wife aborted their 19-week old child and levelled several ‘wild and unsubstantiated’ allegations against him.

The wife had convinced the two doctors, who performed the abortion on May 4, 2012, at a registered Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) centre, that she did not want the child due to her marital discord. In May 2013, the husband moved the family court by filing a divorce petition through his lawyers citing cruelty caused by his wife.
The family court, while referring to the evidence on record and judgments of higher courts, held that as per the MTP Act, 1971, there cannot be justification for terminating the pregnancy due to alleged harassment by the husband and in-laws.
The court held that the doctors appeared to have accepted the wife’s story despite the fact that the child suffered from no abnormality and there was no danger to the woman’s life if the pregnancy continued. The doctors appeared to believed her words and did not consult the husband nor advised her to opt for counselling, the court said.

“It was a joint decision of the couple... to have a child. In such circumstances, the unilateral decision of the respondent (wife) to abort the child caused mental cruelty to the petitioner (husband),” the court held. It was not the wife’s case that the pregnancy was unwanted and imposed upon her, the court said.
On the allegation of attempt to kill her, the court noted that except the words of the respondent, there was no satisfactory evidence to show that the petitioner and his companions tried to kill her five times during her pregnancy. “It is clear that the respondent has made these baseless allegations without any proof,” the court said.
The court observed that there was an inordinate delay of over a year when the wife filed a dowry harassment case against the husband and his relatives and the allegations were not substantiated.
During the hearing of the case, a proposal for divorce by mutual consent was moved on behalf of the wife, but the husband refused the same, citing pending criminal cases the couple had initiated against each other.
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About the Author
Vishwas Kothari

Vishwas Kothari is a special correspondent at The Times of India, Pune. He covers news relating to the education and aviation sectors in Pune. Vishwas has a degree in Mass Communication from Nagpur University, and has participated in the US Government's International Visitors' (IV) Fellowship Programme on `Urban Environmental Issues' in 2005. He writes on crime, courts and legal jurisprudence, defence and corporate affairs too. He loves sports and movies and gorges on infotainment magazines.

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