The Calcutta High Court recently said that if a wife decides to sell the property standing in her name without seeking the husband’s approval, it will not amount to cruelty.

The court was hearing a woman’s appeal against the trial court’s decision to grant the divorce in favour of her husband on the ground of cruelty and desertion.

“It appears that both are educated and if the wife decided to sell the property standing in her name without seeking approval or permission from the husband-respondent, it shall not constitute cruelty,” the court said.

The trial court in 2014 had held that there was a presumption that consideration for the purchased land was paid by the husband as the wife admittedly did not have any income. The High Court said that even if it is taken as truth, the property stood in the wife’s name.

“The wife cannot be regarded as a property of the husband nor she is expected to seek any permission from the husband to do any act or a thing which she decided to do in her life,” it added.

“We have to eradicate the mindset of gender inequality and therefore the finding of the judge in the trial court is unacceptable and untenable,” it further said.

The High Court also said that the ‘dominance’ of men over women is not acceptable to the present society “nor the framers of our Constitution ever inculcated such sense.”