‘We Are In 21st Century’: Supreme Court Says Woman Pursuing Career Is Not Matrimonial Cruelty

Last Updated:May 13, 2026, 21:23 IST

The court noted the woman had been accused of cruelty and desertion because she chose to establish her own dental clinic rather than abandon her dreams to live with her husband.

The Supreme Court has taken strong objection to the observations made by a Gujarat family court and the High Court, which held a woman’s decision to pursue her career and create a stable environment for her child as grounds for “cruelty" and “desertion" in matrimonial proceedings.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta described the approach of the courts as “archaic", “ultra-conservative", “regressive" and rooted in “deeply entrenched archaic societal assumptions", according to a 20-page judgement on May 12 seen by Moneycontrol.

The court noted that the woman, a qualified dentist, had been wrongfully accused of cruelty and desertion because she chose to establish her own dental clinic in Ahmedabad rather than abandon her aspirations to live with her husband, who was an Army officer posted in remote locations.

“We are well into the 21st Century," the judgement read, underlining that marriage does not erase a woman’s individuality.

What Is The Case About?

The couple had married in 2009. The woman was a dentist, while the respondent was stationed in Pune as an Army officer. The appellant began operating a private clinic in Pune in June 2010.

After a year, the respondent was posted to Kargil, and the woman shut her practice to live with him. The two stayed together for over four months, during which she gave birth to a girl. Due to limited facilities in Kargil, the woman was compelled to return to Ahmedabad.

Later, the woman again travelled to Kargil with the child, but her daughter reportedly developed seizure episodes and had to be admitted to a military hospital. Due to the lack of specialised treatment, the couple returned to Ahmedabad for medical care.

Disputes became frequent between the couple over her desire to seek better financial care for the child. Their religious backgrounds – the woman being Christian and her husband Hindu – also strained the relationship.

Maintenance And Legal Battle

The woman first approached Army authorities seeking maintenance for herself and the child. In 2014, the authorities directed the respondent to pay 22%of his salary to his wife and 5.5% to his minor daughter. Later, a family court in Ahmedabad allowed an interim maintenance of Rs 55,000 per month in February 2022, including Rs 35,000 for the appellant and Rs 20,000 for the daughter.

The husband filed for divorce in 2017 and also initiated proceedings seeking prosecution of the appellant for alleged perjury under Sections 195 and 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The family court ruled against the woman’s decision to prioritise her dental clinic, printing invitation cards for its inauguration without informing her husband or in-laws, staying at her parents’ house and allegedly not allowing her mother-in-law to hold her daughter due to infection concerns.

The court held that it was the “bounden duty" of a wife to live wherever the husband resided and treated the appellant’s efforts to run her clinic as evidence of desertion. These charges were later upheld by the Gujarat High Court.

What Did Supreme Court Say?

The Supreme Court rejected the observations made by the lower court, rested on assumptions that “a wife’s professional identity is subject to an implied spousal veto", which was “wholly incompatible with the progressive evolution of society."

“To brandish the effort of the wife to pursue her own career goals as acts of cruelty… is highly objectionable and deplorable in the era where the society proudly talks of women empowerment," the Bench observed.

The court declined to interfere with the divorce, but dismissed the respondent’s plea seeking prosecution of his former wife for perjury, observing that his allegations appeared to stem from “personal vendetta", “anger," and “pent-up frustration". It also ordered that all observations relating to cruelty be “expressly expunged and set aside."

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