New Delhi: In an interesting case, the Supreme Court has admitted a petition filed by a woman working in a Gujarat town asking her Mumbai-based husband to join her in the matrimonial home, as she was earning better salary to look after the family.

A Bench comprising justice Y K Sabharwal and justice H K Sema, while admitting the petition filed by Geeta J Mangtani, who is earning a salary of Rs eight to 10 thousand per month working as a teacher in a government school at Gandhidham, stayed the Gujarat High Court order granting divorce to her husband.

The husband, who has a private job in Mumbai, earns only Rs 1,400 per month. She stated that he had demanded she should give up her job and come and live with him, without insisting on an independent matrimonial home.

As she had a nine-year-old son, she refused to give up her job and instead asked her husband to leave his job and join her at her Gandhidham home.

The husband approached the trial court, which refused to give a decree of divorce on the ground that it cannot be said that wife had left the company of the husband without just and reasonable grounds.

However, the High Court reversed the finding of the trial court. The wife then approached the Supreme Court through counsel R S Raichura.

Raichura argued that the word "matrimonial home" was not defined in the Hindu Marriage Act. "Therefore, if wife is earning more and if the husband had no sufficient income to maintain the wife, she can refuse to go to the house of the husband and such refusal could not be a ground for grant of divorce."

PTI