Only a woman has the right over the ‘stridhan’ kept with her. Even the woman’s relatives, i.e., her mother or father, cannot ask for that money. The Supreme Court gave this important ruling during the hearing of a case. The court said that even if a girl’s parents have given her jewellery during her marriage, they cannot ask for it back. Only that girl has the right over that money. The court said that even if the woman gets divorced, her father cannot ask for the stridhan back. This is of a man named P. Veerbhadra Rao, who got his daughter married in 1999. After this, his daughter and son-in-law went to America.
After 16 years of marriage, the daughter filed a divorce case. Not only this, the Louis County Circuit Court of America approved the divorce by mutual consent in February 2016. Under an agreement, the husband and wife also talked about the house and money. After this, the woman got married for the second time in 2018. After three years, the woman’s father filed an FIR against her in-laws. They demanded the girl’s jewellery. Against this FIR, the people of the daughter’s first in-laws approached the Telangana High Court, but the petition was rejected.
After this, they challenged the High Court’s decision in the apex court. The bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol gave relief to the daughter’s in-laws. The court said that the woman’s father has no right to demand the return of his daughter’s Stridhan. Such a right is only with the woman whose Stridhan it was. Here Stridhan means jewelry and other things related to the woman. Justice Sanjay Karol wrote in his decision, ‘This is a general rule and the law also accepts that a woman is the full owner of the Stridhan she has. No one can divide it.’
This decision of the apex court is important and can become a precedent in many such cases in future. The court said that the husband or ex-husband has no right over Stridhan. Apart from this, her father also has no right, as long as the woman is alive and is capable of taking decisions about herself.