Share house with ousted Husbond : HC

Gujarat high court has ordered a woman police constable to vacate a house and hand over its possession to her husband. She had earlier ousted him with the help of policemen after a lower court, in proceedings under the Domestic Violence Act, ordered that shelter be provided to the wife.

The high court was angry because the wife had got her husband evicted by other policemen after claiming that there was a high court order for this when there was no such order. However, since the law provides for the wife's right to shared accommodation, the high court permitted her to stay in the house during vacation.

According to case details, a schoolteacher, Hasmukh Patel, and police constable Manjula's marriage took place in 2003. The couple has a daughter. The husband has got a house in Ambawada village near Prantij in Sabarkantha district and the couple used to live here. Later, both of them went to Daanta after they got transferred. The wife has got a government quarter for accommodation and the daughter lives in a hostel.

When the dispute arose between them, the wife filed a case under domestic violence laws seeking maintenance and permission to live in the Ambawada house. A magisterial court and after that the sessions court ordered interim maintenance to the wife and also directed the husband to permit her to live in the ancestral house in the village. The judge also restrained him from entering his wife's office and daughter's school and hostel. He was not even allowed to phone the daughter.

After this order, Manjula went to the Ambawada house with cops and took its possession by telling the husband and in-laws that the high court had ordered so. This claim was even mentioned in the documents.

Dispossessed of the house, the husband moved the high court and complained that his wife was quarrelsome in nature and used to dictate terms and threaten that if her word was not followed, she would commit suicide and send her in-laws behind bars. She even filed a criminal case under 498A of IPC but all the accused were acquitted.

The husband had argued that as the police department had allotted an official residence to his wife, she cannot claim shared accommodation by evicting him from the Ambawada house.

Justice N V Anjaria asked her to immediately hand over possession of the house to her husband.