The Supreme Court has made a strong statement regarding dowry rights in a recent case. The Court said that dowry is a woman’s specific property and her father cannot demand it back from her in-laws without her permission.
What Happened?
Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol of the Supreme Court ordered the cancellation of an FIR filed by a divorced woman’s father. In the FIR, the father had asked for the dowry (gifts and jewelry given at the time of marriage) to be returned by the woman’s in-laws.
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Court’s Statement
The Supreme Court stated, “The Court’s previous orders are clear about the woman’s exclusive right to her dowry. It has been recognized that a husband has no claim on dowry, and therefore, the father also has no right to demand the dowry back from the in-laws as long as the daughter is alive or capable of making her own decisions.”
FIR Details
The father had complained that the dowry given during the marriage in 1999 was still with the in-laws and had not been returned. The woman divorced her husband in 2016 and remarried in the UK in 2018. The Court noted that the FIR, filed more than five years after the divorce and three years after the second marriage, had no merit.
The woman’s in-laws had filed a petition in the Telangana High Court on December 22, 2022, to cancel the FIR. However, the High Court had refused to cancel it, stating that the allegations needed preliminary examination. The in-laws then challenged this decision in the Supreme Court.
