NEW DELHI, INDIA, December 4, 2015 (Telegraph): India’s supreme court has ruled that a man cannot divorce his wife if she is terminally ill, even if she consents, because he is duty-bound under Hindu law to care for her. The landmark ruling came as justices turned down the divorce application of a man whose wife, it emerged, had breast cancer, amid fears he was pressuring her to accept a financial settlement to pay for her medical treatment.
“It is evident that the wife needs sufficient amount of money for the treatment of breast cancer,” the ruling said. “Hence, it cannot be ruled out that in order to save her life by getting money, she agreed for a settlement of dissolution of marriage.” They refused the divorce because the man was “promising to do something which he is already duty bound,” and ruled that consent could not be given with the husband in a position of such undue influence.
The judges instead ordered the man pay US$7,500 within a week for his wife’s medical treatment – the approximate cost of the immediate surgery and first round of chemotherapy her breast cancer required – and to only approach family court once again for divorce when she had recovered. Justices M.Y. Eqbal and C. Nagappan quoted a passage from the epic “Mahabharata” in their judgment, stating: “Where women are honored there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honored no sacred rite yields rewards.”