In a powerful verdict advancing women’s rights, the Kerala High Court has ruled that women can claim their ‘Sridhan’—gold, money, and gifts received during marriage—even without documentary evidence. Calling it her “exclusive property,” the court emphasized that lack of paperwork cannot deprive a woman of what is legally hers.
A division bench of Justices Devan Ramachandran and M.B. Snehalatha made this observation while hearing a woman’s appeal from Kalamassery, Ernakulam, who was denied her gold ornaments during divorce proceedings. The court overturned the earlier ruling, recognizing the social reality that such gifts are rarely documented and are often held by the husband’s family under informal trust.
Highlighting that it would be unfair to demand rigid legal proof in these cases, the court adopted the “preponderance of probabilities” standard—where the likelihood and context outweigh the need for formal documentation.
In this case, the woman had received 63 sovereigns of gold during her wedding. The court found that 59.5 sovereigns remained with her husband and ordered him to return the gold or its equivalent value.
The judgment sets a progressive precedent, underscoring that justice for women must not be constrained by procedural technicalities in cases involving personal and traditional property like Sridhan.
