The Kerala High Court recently ruled an unmarried daughter had the right to receive reasonable expenses from her father for her marriage, irrespective of her religion.
“It is a right of every unmarried daughter irrespective of her religion. There cannot be a discriminatory exclusion from claiming such a right based on religion,” observed the bench of Justice Anil K Narendran and Justice PG Ajithkumar.
The court was dealing with pleas moved by two Christian sisters, who sought realisation of Rs 45,92,600 from their father towards their marriage expenses. A Hindu unmarried daughter can seek reasonable expenses of and incidental to her marriage from her father under Section 3(b) of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. Also, in 2011, a division bench of the high court, while dealing with a case involving Muslim parties (titled Ismayil v Fathima and another) declared that not only a Muslim father, every father irrespective of religion has an obligation to pay expenses with regard to his daughter’s marriage.
In the present case, however, the parties are Christian by religion. The division bench observed that there cannot be a discriminatory exclusion from claiming such a right based on religion.
“The right of an unmarried daughter to get marriage expenses from her father is now a legal right. By taking an analogy from the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act that right, irrespective of religion, can be enforced against the profits from the immovable property of the father,” the court said.
Accordingly, the court held that in the present case as well, the father of the petitioners had an obligation to meet reasonable expenses in connection to his daughters’ marriage.
The Christian sisters, aged 26 and 21, had filed a suit before the family court seeking realisation of Rs 45,92,600 from their father towards their marriage expenses. Their parents were separated and the girls lived with the mother.
The sisters had also appealed for the creation of a charge for the amount claimed towards their marriage expenses over a property upon which their father had built a house and was residing there. They alleged that their father had bought the property with the money collected by selling their mother’s jewellery and by taking financial aid from her and her side of the family.
The father had opposed the claims made by his two daughters. He had argued that the property and the house belonged to him, and that he had already taken care of all the educational expenses of the two women.
The family court had held the girls entitled to minimum required expenses for the marriage amounting to Rs 7,50,000. It had, however, refused to grant an order of injunction against the father regarding the disputed property.
The HC, while holding the petitioners entitled to claim a charge on the immovable property of their father, also raised the amount for marriage expenses to be paid by him from Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh.
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