Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

1. Petitioners Nos. 1 and 2 are the father-in-law and the mother-in-law respectively of the respondent. The latter filed a complaint under Section 406, I. P. C, against them in the Court of the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Chandigarh. In that complaint it was averred that the respondent was married to Iqbal Jang Singh, son of the petitioners, on March 27, 1977, at Chandigarh by Anand Karaj ceremony which is the customary form of marriage prevalent in the community of the parties, At the time of her marriage, the respondent received substantial presents of ornaments, clothes, furniture and other household articles from her parents, relations, her husband and the petitioners. These items of property, over which she had absolute control, according to her, became her stridhan. As a dutiful daughter-in-law of the petitioners, she reposed full faith in them and entrusted all this property to them. She was disallowed the use of the ornaments (which according to the items mentioned in Annexure 'A' to the complaint were of the value of rupees over one lac) on the pretext that "the times were not safe for wearing valuable ornaments.

3. After making a mention of certain other facts, the complaint goes on to state that "the accused have committed an offence under Section 406, I. P. C. by committing criminal breach of trust of the ornaments and other articles owned by the complainant which ere her stridhan which were entrusted to the accused for safe custody and which the accused have dishonestly misappropriated, which offence is cognizable and triable by this Court." Towards the end, it was prayed that they be tried and suitably punished in accordance with law and the articles mentioned in Annexures A & B be ordered to be returned to her.

18. That even stridhan of Hindu law does not mean an unlimited power of disposal in the female. This doctrine governed the inheritance to such property and made the female new stock of descent and gave preference to the daughters over the son.

19. That under the present law no claim can be made on the basis of stridhan, as it has now been completely abolished and cannot avail against the statute which makes it the joint property of the parties (1977 Chand LE (Cri) 212) (Punj & Har).

20. That since the property was gifted and was joint of the parties it could not be said to have been misappropriated or converted to a different and dishonest user, as the parties own this property jointly and the property has not been converted to any use different from the one which could have been implied even if the truth of the allegations is admitted.

Her husband can neither control her in her dealings with it, nor use it himself. But he may take it in case of extreme distress, as in a famine, or for some indispensable duty, or during illness, or while a creditor keeps him in prison. Even then he would appear to be under at least a moral obligation to restore the value of the property when able to do so. What he has taken without necessity, he is bound to repay with interest.

7-A. From these passages the learned Counsel wants us to infer that the ornaments and clothes given to the respondent at the time of her marriage were meant for the use of both the spouses, and the husband could actually use this property in case of extreme distress but he is under a moral obligation to return this property with interest. The obligation to pay interest, submits the learned Counsel, shows that such a property can never become subject-matter of criminal breach of trust. The learned Counsel then referred to us Section 27 of the Hindu Marriage Act which empowers a Court to pass decree directing the husband to return to the wife her ornaments and other articles. He argued that the respondent can at the most file a petition under this section and claim a decree for the return of the ornaments etc. The last argument on this point raised was that under Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act a female had become the full owner of her property which implied that the concept of stridhan had become wholly obsolete. We have carefully considered these ingenuous arguments advanced by Mr. Thapar. The two statutes, namely, the Hindu Marriage Act and the Hindu Succession Act have only partially modified the principles of Hindu law, and no provision contained in either of these statutes has either expressly or by implication in any ;way modified the concept of stridhan, N. B. Raghavachariar in his Hindu Law (Principles & Precedents) Fifth Edition at page 533 has observed as under: