Court Can Order Compensation If Wife Forced to Sue for Dower: HC

The High Court has issued a significant observation stating that family courts can order a husband to pay compensation if he compels his wife to seek legal redress despite possessing the financial capability to clear her dower. The observation was made in the full verdict of the case 'Yakub Ali vs. Sanjida Nasrin' delivered by the single-judge High Court bench of Justice Md. Abdur Rahman. The verdict clearly affirmed that under Muslim family law, there is no scope to impose 'deferred dower' in the marriage deed without the wife's explicit consent, and it must be treated as prompt dower payable immediately upon demand.

Case records reveal that Yakub Ali married Sanjida Nasrin in 2014 with a settled dower of Tk 22 lakh, and the couple later had a daughter. Following dowry disputes and domestic discord, Yakub divorced his wife in 2017. In 2019, Sanjida filed a lawsuit in Chattogram Family Court claiming unpaid dower, iddat maintenance, and child support. In May 2022, the court ruled in her favor, directing the husband to pay Tk 20.40 lakh within two months and Tk 7,000 monthly for the daughter's maintenance until her marriage, with a 10 percent annual increase.

Yakub appealed against the ex-parte verdict, but Chattogram Additional District Judge dismissed the appeal and upheld the lower court's decree. Challenging this, the husband moved a civil revision before the High Court, where his counsel argued that due to business losses, remaining amounts could not be paid in a lump sum and requested installments on humanitarian grounds. Opposing the plea, the wife's counsel, Advocate Ishrat Hasan, argued that the husband deliberately deprived his wife and daughter of their legal rights despite having the means.

After hearing both sides, the High Court upheld the lower court's decree. In its reasoning, the court affirmed that the judiciary has no jurisdiction to waive any part of the dower. A waiver is only legally valid if the wife willingly, consciously, and without any coercion renounces it. The court also underlined that parties cannot bypass the terms of a written civil contract, and found the determined child maintenance completely rational given the contemporary socio-economic realities of raising a school-going child.