Restitution Of Conjugal Rights: Its Legality And Ambiguity In Present Day India

KR Shubham, Amity Law School, Lucknow

Mudra Singh, Professor, Amity Law School, Lucknow

ABSTRACT

In India marriage is a vital part of individual’s life, it is considered a pious and divine act. It creates a pious and strong bond between two people as well as their family. The concepts of progressive marriage which an acceptable by the society and the law is trying to find its place, however even though marriage is a pious bond which bold two individuals together but sometimes marriage doesn’t seems to be working which can create instances where a spouse might not want to live with the other spouse and thus has withdrawn from his/ her the society with any proper justification. One of the remedies which ensures bringing back the spouse who has withdrawn from society of his/her spouse without any reasonable cause is Restitution of conjugal rights, it is one of the legal right available to the spouse from whose society his/her spouse has withdrawn. However, though this legal right which is considered to provide remedies there are various loophole and patriarchal essence in this remedy, such as burden of prove, or burden of demonstration excuse for withdrawal lies on the person who has withdrawn from the society who mostly are women, who have escaped from the grip of their abusive husband, thus practically is hard to prove abuse. So, the injustice which lies within this section has been continuously challenged and criticized on the grounds of violating of individual’s fundamental right and thus the Supreme Court must scrutinize this pertaining remedy is not unconstitutional.

Keywords: Marriage, Pious, Restitution, Burden of proof, Fundamental right, Unconstitutional