A 38 year old woman from Bombay filed a writ petition before Bombay High Court against an order by the Family court to vacate a flat in Mulund which she claimed to be her matrimonial home.
Her husband had filed a petition for decree of nullity which was opposed by the wife and she filed a written statement in the court mentioning how she was tortured by her husband, brother in law, sister in law and it continued even during her pregnancy and even after her daughter was born.
In her petition, the petitioner stated that she was forced to go out of her matrimonial home on December 8, 2013 and she was asked to move to her parental home in Colaba. Later on in February 2014, She was accompanied by a female police officer to her matrimonial home but still not allowed to enter the house, following the complaint to the police and the State woman’s commission. She made another failed attempt with the help of Mulund Police in March 2014.
Before filing the writ petition, the petitioner has sought for the interim injunction in the family court against her husband and his relatives restraining them from dispossessing her from the matrimonial home. The family court after hearing both the sides granted the injunction and issued notice to the husband. Following the injunction order, her husband filed an application in which he asked for vacation against the order of injunction on the ground that her so called wife was already married to another man and this marriage is void ab initio and hence she has no right to stay in his father’s home.
The family court vacated the order of injunction on the ground that the said house belonged to husband’s father and the petitioner had no right or title in the said property as the husband himself was not residing there, instead in a house in Navi Mumbai.
The court referred to Statements of Objects and Reasons and Section 19 of the Protection of woman from Domestic Violence Act which provide the woman the right to live in her matrimonial home even if she doesn’t have any right or title there. In addition, the court also observed that no documents were produced by the husband to show that he was not living at a matrimonial home in Mulund but in Navi Mumbai.
The court further allowed the write petition filed by the wife considering the whole situation to be a ploy by the Respondent to deprive the petitioner of her rightful claims.
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