New Delhi, India

Last week, a high court in Indian delivered a significant verdict which said that women homemakers contribute to the acquisition of family assets by performing the household chores and are entitled to an equal share of property purchased from their husband’s income. 

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The Madras High Court, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, also noted that a homemaker’s job is 24 hours without holidays and cannot be equated with the job of an earning husband who only worked for eight hours. 

The verdict delivered on June 21, is seen as a significant move by the country’s HC since it sets a precedent for future cases between spouses while also recognising women’s domestic labour. 

About the case

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The case involved a couple who got married in 1965 and lived in Tamil Nadu’s Neyveli. Some 17 years later, the husband moved to Saudi Arabia for a job. 

Meanwhile, his wife and the first respondent, Kamsala Ammal, and the late Kannaian Naidu (the husband) had mutually agreed, as per the defendant’s counsel V Anusha, that she would stay at home and take care of their three children (two sons and a daughter), who were minors so that her husband could work abroad. 

In his absence, Ammal, bought several assets including real estate and jewellery, using the money he sent back home some of which are under her name and others his. In 1995, Naidu filed a lawsuit, a year after his return to India, accusing her of trying to usurp the properties and assets bought on his behalf. He also accused her of having an extra-marital affair. 

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Counsel V Anusha denied the affair allegations and said that it was the aforementioned mutual understanding between the couple which stopped Ammal from pursuing a career in teaching and giving up opportunities for employment to look after the family. 

The wife also claimed that she sold some of her ancestral properties to fund her husband’s foreign trip and also earned some money by tutoring and tailoring which she used to acquire some of the assets. 

The HC heard about five properties and assets out of which two had been acquired by her husband out of his savings and bought from the money he had earned while working in Saudi Arabia, as gifts for her. This included a land parcel and a house bought using Naidu’s income under Ammal’s name as well as some jewellery and sarees which are in a bank locker also under her name. 

The case was taken up to the HC after a local court, in 2015 had rejected the wife’s claim for an equal share in three of the five assets. As legal heirs, Naidu’s children filed a second appeal after his passing away in 2016. 

What did the court find?

The case was heard by Madras HC Justice Krishnan Ramasamy, who observed that the wife contributed to the acquisition of the family assets by performing household chores for decades and should be entitled to an equal share in the properties. 

“In generality of marriages, the wife bears and rears children and minds the home. She thereby frees her husband for his economic activities,” said the Madras HC judge. He added, “Since it is her performance of her function which enables the husband to perform his, she is in justice, entitled to share in its fruits.”

Judge Ramasamy also acknowledged that while there is no current legislation which recognises the contributions made by the wife, it does not prevent the judge from doing so. “No law prevents the Judges from recognizing the contributions made by a wife facilitating her husband to purchase the property.” 

He added, “In my view, if the acquisition of assets is made by joint contribution (directly or indirectly) of both the spouses for the welfare of the family, certainly, both are entitled to equal share”. 

The Madras HC judge also spoke about how taking care of the children and family is a 24-hour job and “nothing like” an eight-hour job which the husband was doing. He also said that the wife as a homemaker performs multiple tasks like budgeting, organising, and cooking, while also acting as a “home doctor”, “home economist”, etc. 

He added, “Therefore, by performing these skills, a wife makes the home as a comfortable environment…and certainly it is not a valueless job, but it is a job doing for 24 hours without holidays, which cannot be less equated with that of the job of an earning husband who only works for 8 hours.”

The savings sent by Naidu back to India for his family were done because of the 24-hour effort that his wife put in towards their family, the court observed. 

“If, on marriage, she gives up her paid work in order to devote herself to caring for her husband and children, it is an unwarrantable hardship when in consequence she finds herself in the end with nothing she can call her own,” said the Madras HC judge. 

Therefore, whatever property might have been purchased either in the name of the husband or wife alone it was bought with the “monies saved by their joint efforts”. Notably, Naidu claimed rights over the properties which were bought under his wife’s name since he had provided the funds for the purchase. 

The point of contention for the husband was that since he was abroad the property could not be bought under his name, hence purchased in the wife’s name which the lower courts had accepted. However, the Madras HC in its verdict granted half the share in the assets acquired by the husband in his own name to the wife.

The verdict’s significance

As noted by Judge Ramasamy, there is no legislation in India which recognises the contributions made by women who work as homemakers and in such cases, the courts without acknowledgement are more likely to rule in the husband’s favour like the lower courts did, in this case. 

A Karnataka HC lawyer, Kiran SR, said that countries like the United Kingdom have legislations in place which provide an equal share of property in cases of disputes between spouses, as per Indian media reports, adding that only a few Indian judgments have acknowledged the same. 

According to experts, this case would also act as a legal precedent for future cases which typically take nearly two decades to resolve, including some divorce cases. 

Women’s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes welcomed the verdict and called it a “very positive judgement because it recognises women's domestic labour,” as quoted by BBC. 

Similarly, in a 2021 case, the Indian Supreme Court also noted the value of a homemaker’s notional income and raised the compensation to the relatives of a couple who died in a motor accident.  

A report titled ‘Time Use in India-2019’ by the National Statistical Office estimated that women spend around 299 minutes per day doing unpaid domestic services for the members of a household as opposed to 97 minutes by men. 

Additionally, women also spend 134 minutes on unpaid caregiving when compared to 76 minutes for men. Therefore, the SC bench, citing the report, said that the woman’s work at home is no less than an office-going husband. 

However, speaking about the recent verdict, Malavika Rajkotia, a family and property lawyer, said the SC’s verdict “translated into numbers” but this was the first time that “a meaningful recognition of the homemaker’s right,” took place in the courts, as per BBC. 

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