A Wrongful Demand for Dower (Haq Mehr)

Question: A wife has filed a suit against her husband demanding that he divorce her and pay her dower of a house, dowry items worth one and a half crore rupees, and monthly maintenance of twenty-five thousand rupees. Tell me what should I do?

Solution: What can you do about this? I'm telling you based on my experience, think it over and your problem will be resolved. 1. Hire a competent and capable lawyer. There's a Punjabi saying: pay dearly once and cry, or pay cheaply and cry again and again. Now how will you know he's competent and capable? You'll find out in the first meeting, because when you go and explain your problem, the questions he asks you, based on his experience, in relation to that problem, will tell you whether he's capable, competent, and qualified. 2. Whatever you think is irrelevant, whatever you think is very important, whatever you think is unnecessary, you need to tell your lawyer everything related to your case. A good lawyer will note everything down as you speak in that first meeting, because in countless cases things slip a person's mind, and when he draws out your first account, or draws it out to draft your case, your whole picture comes together, and then he writes it down.

Now let me come to this case: a wife filed a suit that she be given divorce based on the husband's cruel treatment. As dower, she had been given a house in writing, that be given to her, a long, detailed list of dowry items worth one and a half crore was given, and for maintenance she demanded twenty-five thousand rupees monthly. Dowry items worth one and a half crore. Now this suit was filed against the husband, the husband came to me, I asked about everything, he said, sir, we swear on the Quran, we don't want to keep even a single needle belonging to anyone, we want to return it, but this one-and-a-half-crore dowry list is absolutely false. Now the important point was that pulling the court out of that trance required real effort, that this list of dowry items worth one and a half crore is wrong, whereas this dowry is worth two to two and a half lakh rupees. Now a person demands one and a half crore, how much will it come down to, he'll give fifty lakh, forty lakh. Now the actual situation was that this dowry was worth two, two and a half, three lakh rupees. The key focus was how to bring it down from one and a half crore. How do we get one and a half crore out of the court's psyche, out of its thinking? This is completely baseless, an entire foundation had to be laid for this, a whole process, for which I had to hold countless meetings, calling in the client. I kept calling the client repeatedly, repeatedly. In the initial stage nothing was making sense, the reply to the suit also had to go in, what do we do, what do we do, what do we do? How do we get rid of this one-and-a-half-crore dowry claim? By the fourth or fifth meeting, now my client comes in with chains around his neck, all this, the other party comes too, also quite hard to make sense of. Suddenly I asked, brother, how many marlas is your house built on? He said, four marlas. I asked, who all lives there? He said, I live there, my two brothers live there, my parents live there. The two brothers, are they married? Yes, they're both married. In a four-marla house? Yes, yes, yes. What did you get? I got one room on the ground floor, nothing else besides that, the kitchen is shared. On the second floor, on the third floor, the two brothers live separately, downstairs I live in one room, and all that. I said, alright, I asked, how many marlas is the girl's family's house? They said, theirs is also four or five marlas. I said, who all lives there? They said her two married brothers live there, one unmarried brother lives there, parents live there, an uncle lives there with his family, thank God, in a five-marla house. Yes, a five-marla house. I said, prepare your list on oath, on the Quran. A list of dowry items such as a normal father, normal parents would give their daughter. I attached that dowry list with our written statement and prepared our reply to the suit, confirming every point in it. One thing I failed to get the trial court to understand, but which was accepted by the High Court, was that the house mentioned in the nikahnama was only to the extent of her right to reside there, that as long as you remain married, you have the right to live in this house, but the trial court and the appellate court took this to mean, no, this house has been given to her outright. The High Court accepted this too, and after accepting it, the Supreme Court also accepted it, I hadn't gone to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court upheld it, the Supreme Court formally discussed it. After discussing it, all these matters proceeded. Now when I placed this before the court, a person living in a five-marla house is sending his daughter off with one and a half crore worth of dowry items into a house that's three to four marlas. I'm not even saying three marlas, I'm not saying four marlas, I'm saying five marlas, sending her with one and a half crore worth of dowry into a five-marla house where two married sons already live, and the parents live, and this person himself. The trial court accepted this, at the first step I brought them out of that trance, this was also accepted by the plaintiff during her testimony, and after the plaintiff accepted, yes, we live in a five-marla house with this many people, yes, they live in a three-to-four-marla house with this many people, then where did that one-and-a-half-crore dowry go? She also says she was given one room to live in, she also says there was no store room there, she also says there was no drawing room there. A house with no drawing room, a house with no store room, how could one-and-a-half-crore worth of dowry fit there? Now it didn't stop there, first I set this up, then in the cancellation proceedings I filed an application stating that my client is ready to swear on oath that the dowry list he has attached and presented in court is complete, he doesn't even have a needle besides that, either take my oath, or have this lady come and swear that no, this dowry list is false, the list I've given is true. When this application went in, they backed off, they said, sir, decide on merits, decide on merits. The trial court held, regarding the dowry items, that the list given by the husband was correct, but regarding dower, it decreed the house. Now this house doesn't even exist, my client didn't own even an inch of it, nothing to it. The house mentioned was actually my client's father's house, and the whole family lived in it. We went to the appellate court, the appellate court accepted our position. After accepting it, the whole process followed. Then an important turning point came, which happens in courts, no need to worry. The trial court's decision was actually upheld. We went to the High Court, and the High Court accepted it, after that the Supreme Court also discussed it, that nowhere in the nikahnama does it state that this house would be given as a gift, or that this house would be given as dower. The whole reason I needed to tell you this case is that you should be informed, you should know what your case actually is. If a case is filed and lakhs, crores of rupees are demanded, you shouldn't immediately panic. You should also know your own facts, that I am truthful and he is lying, or I am truthful and he is lying. To prove this, you need to tell your lawyer all the facts, and a good lawyer, keeping all these facts in mind, gets testimony recorded and does the investigation. If you don't tell him, if you don't do this, the loss is yours. It was claimed there was one-and-a-half-crore worth of dowry items, a house worth one crore, all these were the matters. Now in this I also won something else. She had demanded maintenance, but she admitted, based on her own evidence, that I went to my parents' house of my own will, and I don't want to reconcile with him of my own will. When a wife says that I left my husband's home of my own will, he didn't throw me out, and I don't want to go back to my husband of my own will, the law says there's no obligation on the husband to provide her maintenance. The husband's obligation to provide maintenance applies when she is fulfilling her marital obligations. 1. If the husband, without cause, without justification, beat her or forcibly threw her out of his house, and she is forced to live at her parents' home, and her position is that I am ready to fulfil my marital obligations, but my husband is quarrelsome, my husband is cruel, he isn't letting me live with him, and since I am still married to him, it's his responsibility to provide maintenance, the court will say, absolutely correct, it is his responsibility to provide maintenance, and it will make him pay it.