Dignity on Trial

One woman’s fight for justice

Mehnaz Begum chose to knock the doors of court of law to get what was her legal right, that is, maintenance and dower from an abusive husband who had long disappeared after only a year of marriage. What followed was an indefinite saga of humiliation and mental agony. For ten long years, she was dragged through the corridors of courts, went through a series of medical examinations and out of line questioning.

All these things were endured just to prove a single fact –her womanhood –in quest of what she was entitled to. In a country where the respect or reputation of a woman is contingent on her submission, silence and the ability to endure abuse, the decision made by Mehnaz to opt for legal remedy was, not surprisingly, met with utmost humiliation, personal attacks and her dignity and privacy being snatched away. 

One thing that deserves every bit of praise is Mehnaz Begum’s resilience. Her fight was not against an abusive husband, rather, she fought against a whole adversarial system which was so shallow that it made her prove whether she was a woman or not. If the institutions really want to honor her courage, they must start implementing the spirit of this judgement, not just as an exception, but as a norm before any other Mehnaz is dragged into courts to prove her womanhood!

A few months back, the Supreme Court, in a recent judgement titled Saleh Muhammad V Mst. Mehnaz Begum confronted the misuse of the law against a woman’s dignity. Mehnaz Begum, married in 2006 and abandoned within a year by her husband, had no choice other than to seek maintenance, dower and dowry articles from court in 2015. Her husband, who had remarried and moved abroad, argued that she was not a ‘woman’ due to her alleged infertility. The trial court followed by the higher two judicial forums rejected his baseless claim and the suit was decreed in favour of Mehnaz Begum. Despite a decade of litigation, the husband took this baseless plea to the Supreme Court which was dismissed with exemplary costs of Rs 500,000.

The petitioner’s argumentation was an apt depiction of the misogyny embedded in our social fabric. The petitioner claimed that his wife did not fall in the purview of a ‘woman’ due to her alleged infertility, thus, was not entitled to maintenance. By attacking the very identity of an individual, he employed a common patriarchal weapon which aims towards a disturbing notion, that absent men who fail as husbands, still enjoy the prerogative to determine a woman’s identity and control her actions. Although his claim was rejected by three judicial forums repeatedly, he approached the apex court while taking refuge in frivolous litigation. The message being loud and clear– the claim was never about legal recourse, rather, it was about power and control. 

Mehnaz Begum had to undergo two medical examinations and bear baseless allegations only to get her legal right. The honorable subordinate courts ignored her right of privacy and exercised a flawed approach while allowing these examinations. In doing so, the courts, however unintentionally, reinforced the patriarchal approach embedded in our norms which led to her right of dignity as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution being snatched away.

The courts being the custodian of the fundamental human rights must ensure that persecution of litigants must not take place under the garb of ‘due processes’. The defendant, already aggrieved and abandoned by her husband, was forced to tolerate a decade of psychological oppression. The Supreme Court refused to reiterate the contents of the medical reports, thus restoring a part of her lost dignity. This case highlights the gap between the constitutional guarantees and their stark procedural realities. Dignity, although inviolable, was snatched bit by bit from the defendant during the course of litigation. 

Whether it was a series of medical examinations or lack of cost sanctions at earlier stages, the inaction of the courts caused the harm they were bound to prevent. It is a welcome step by the Supreme Court to acknowledge the disadvantage the defendant was suffering from. A woman who entered the apex court after ten years of litigation, was strangled by the shackles of patriarchy, societal stigmas and financial dependency. This power imbalance needs to be recognized by the courts not just as imposing a legal duty, but as a moral responsibility. 

The imposition of costs by the Supreme Court was indeed commendable to deter such kind of frivolous and prejudiced litigation. But a sociological shift is there regarding how we view litigation is the need of the hour, especially when the question of gender or vulnerability is involved. If the courts reprimand and actively penalize such kind of argumentation rooted in prejudice, they basically help in reshaping public discourse. They draw certain lines about how far one can go without crossing certain boundaries. Judicial attitudes have the potential to influence the social norms and future litigants. A clear message that the dignity of a female or any vulnerable community is not up for debate must be reflected at the trial level through judicial pronouncements and resistance.

Such judgments demand something more from the institutions: introspection. Judges at the trial level must be trained effectively to counter such kind of argumentation from a gender sensitive lens. They must feel empowered through institutional support. That is how a jurisprudence of resistance can be incorporated at the trial level which might effectively counter a chain of prolonged and prejudiced litigation. 

One thing that deserves every bit of praise is Mehnaz Begum’s resilience. Her fight was not against an abusive husband, rather, she fought against a whole adversarial system which was so shallow that it made her prove whether she was a woman or not. If the institutions really want to honor her courage, they must start implementing the spirit of this judgement, not just as an exception, but as a norm before any other Mehnaz is dragged into courts to prove her womanhood!