Overview
- The ruling, delivered Tuesday by Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, set aside findings of cruelty and desertion against the wife.
- The court kept the divorce in place but reclassified it as an irretrievable breakdown because she would not resume the marriage and he has remarried.
- It rejected the husband's bid to prosecute her for perjury, calling the allegations a product of personal vendetta from a long dispute.
- The bench said lower courts relied on archaic assumptions that a wife must live where her husband works and accept an implied spousal veto over her profession.
- The case involved a dentist who stayed in Ahmedabad to secure treatment for her daughter’s seizures and continue her practice, a choice the court said cannot be penalized and that could shape future cases involving transferable or remote postings.