Decade-old Divorce battle ends in Reunion

 

A decade-long divorce battle recently ended on a happy note with the husband taking the wife home after her twelve-year-long 'incarceration' at a mental health hospital following a Magistrate's order.

The Family Court in Bandra, in December, also noted its own struggle to get a review board to assess & get the woman released, 7 years after the hospital had discharged her, but her husband declined to take her home. "This is a case, where only because the wife was not allowed in the matrimonial home, she had to languish in a mental hospital for more than a decade even after her discharge," Family Court Judge Swati Chauhan said.

The couple was married in 1993. On the man's application about the wife's mental health, a Metropolitan Magistrate in 2009 passed a 'reception order' based on which she was sent to the mental hospital. In 2012, her husband filed for divorce on the grounds of "cruelty & unsoundness of mind". Judge Chauhan heard the case for the first time in Oct 2021.

The Family Court Order said that "The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 promulgates to protect, promote & fulfill the rights of such persons during delivery of mental healthcare & service & matters connected therewith. However, this court found it arduous to search & lay hands on the mental health review board. Unfortunately, the respondent-wife could not benefit from the new law & her melancholy continued".

The Court said in 2014, the medical superintendent, in compliance with the Act, had ordered the woman's discharge as she was found fit. The wife & a nurse were sent home, but the husband "refused to keep her in the matrimonial home" & she was again 'detained' at the mental hospital.

The Court said, "This is a classic example of how a reception order was misused to literally drive out a wife from the matrimonial home & thereafter restrict her reentry", saying it was "most aghast" at the reason given that the divorce case was pending. The Court said it was "equally disturbing" that no one checked on her while she was at the hospital, neither her child on turning a major, nor her brother.

The husband initially said he would house her at a shelter home & bear all expenses. But the Court counselled him, who said he would find a house for her nearby. But on Nov 27, when the Court directed her immediate discharge, he said he will take her home.

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(With input from news agency language)

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