mehnat Husbands have started to bite back
Top of PageSo far we have seen that the average number of cases in marital litigation in India has increased due to wives having become more litigious in mediocris than before. Is it absurd in the light of this fact to hypothesize that at least a section of husbands must have started hitting back in similar fashion by now? After all, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
True. And if we look at the statistical evidence we will find confirmation that such a hypothesis is not unfounded. Husbands have started to file cases in the last decade and a half –including criminal cases. This trend is leading us very fast towards a situation in which the average number of cases in marital litigation will have increased due to both partners in marriages having become more litigious than before; that is if we are not already in that situation.
The latest is that some husbands are going so far as to file more than a single case. This type of specimen is prone to filing cases proactively, i.e. he does not wait for his wife to file cases before starting litigation. All this makes for a fearful national picture when combined with litigation stirred up by wives.
Examples of husbands who fought back, and their legal strategies
Top of PageIt is instructive to examine the legal strategies of husbands who litigated energetically. Let us look at a few examples of such men.
A husband who went to the extent of seeking maintenance from his wife: Praneet Modi vs Shikha Shah
Top of Page(Continued from end of previous section) Praneet Modi vs Shikha Shah [1][2] (2024-2025) is a case of this very type. The husband succeeded because he left no stone unturned in prosecuting his case. He took his legal defence to an extreme level by filing case after case against his wife. It can be called a good legal strategy because of the fact that it was a successful strategy.
Shikha Shah set the ball rolling by filing a dowry case against Praneet Modi, being FIR No. 40 of 2023 in PS Mahila Thana in Kotwali, Varanasi. He responded to her legal attack by filing a divorce petition in Tis Hazari Family Court in Delhi, whereupon she filed her own divorce petition in Varanasi and took the scorecard to 2-1.
At this point husband and wife filed one transfer petition each in the Supreme Court. The husband prayed for his wife’s divorce suit to be transferred to Delhi, and she prayed that his divorce suit be transferred to Varanasi.
Now the husband took two retaliatory steps against his wife, the first of which was to file a maintenance application(!) against her under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act. A criminal complaint against her before a magistrate in Tis Hazari District Court was his second step.
The Supreme Court took up their transfer petitions for hearing in 2025, and dissolved their marriage in the first sitting.
On the surface it seems like Mr. Modi took an extremely aggressive stand against his wife –but his litigation as a matter of fact was a clever cocktail of defensive and offensive steps. The fact that he replied in a more than tit-for-tat fashion to her cases created pressure on her to settle for a compromise.
The total number of cases in their litigation was seven. This included, as mentioned above, two opposing transfer petitions in the Supreme Court.
A husband who took legal actions at lightning speed: Gaganjot Kaur vs Taranjeet Singh
Top of PageAs in life, so in litigation, it is very important to be diligent. The case of Taranjeet Singh presents us with an example of a husband who wasted no time at any step of his marital litigation. He understood the assignment, as they say on social media these days.
The following facts were recorded by the Supreme Court in Gaganjot Kaur vs Taranjeet Singh [3][4] (2024-2025).
Taranjeet and Gaganjot got married on the 3rd of December, 2023 in Jammu, whereafter they started living together in his parents’ house –also in Jammu. Differences arose between them and Gaganjot left the matrimonial home as a consequence of these differences. This was on the 9th of February 2024. The husband turned out to be prompt in responding. He filed a missing person report two days later, on the 11th of February.
He followed up on this first step by sending his paternal uncle to accompany the appointed police search party to Gurgaon. This was the second very systematic step in his litigation, and it was a step which bore fruit. It established the fact that Taranjeet had a disciplined approach towards litigation.
The concerned court received a status report concerning Mr. Singh’s missing person report on the 9th of May, 2024. He again acted quickly and filed a suit for divorce along with an application seeking admission of his divorce petition before the expiry of one year from the date of solemnisation of his marriage with Gaganjot Kaur. The said expiry of a one year period is a mandatory requirement as per Section 14 of the Hindu Marriage Act. An application needs to be filed to obtain a waiver of this requirement. Divorce case hearings can begin without the one-year wait if it is accepted.
Taranjeet filed his divorce petition along with the said application on the 29th of May 2024.
Then he filed a criminal case against his wife in the court of a municipal magistrate in Jammu, and started attending hearings of his divorce case.
His diligence paid off. His waiver application was approved by the family court in Jammu on the 2nd of August 2024. This was a rare victory. What usually happens with such applications (i.e. applications for admission of divorce petitions filed before expiry of the mandatory one-year period from the date of solemnisation of marriage) is that family courts take so much time to examine them that they become infructuous before they can be decided.
His wife woke up from her legal slumber in December 2024, and retaliated with 3 cases against him– a maintenance petition under CrPC Section 125, a DV complaint, and a criminal complaint under IPC Sections 498A, 294 (Obscene acts or songs), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34. She then filed a transfer petition in the Supreme Court to get that litigation which was situated in Jammu transferred to Gwalior. This made for a matrimonial litigation consisting of 7 matters– 6 cases (3 by him against her and 3 by her against him) and 1 transfer petition!
Taranjeet Singh obtained his divorce in the Supreme Court on the 18th of August 2025 –less than 21 months after getting married. This is an excellently short span of time for managing to get divorce in Hindu / Sikh / Jain / Buddhist marriages in India.
In sum he made his legal position as secure as was possible in his circumstances by firstly –and very importantly– being extremely prompt and by secondly filing a mix of civil and criminal cases. Thereafter he sat back and hoped for the best. God helped him because he helped himself.
A man who carried his litigation into 3 states: Sneha Singh vs Ashwani Kumar
Top of PageOne Sneha Singh got married to one Ashwani Kumar on the 07th of July, 2021. They did not live together very long, and separated on the 26th of August in the same year. The wife thereafter filed a dowry complaint against her husband in PS (Police Station) Dehri in District Rohtas of Bihar in early 2023 (probably in January, because the number of her FIR was 03 / 2023). She included allegations of theft and extortion in her complaint, and on top of that included the names of both his parents and three sisters in the said complaint.
The husband retaliated creatively by filing a divorce petition against her in Lucknow, which is in Uttar Pradesh. This step meant that she also would be required to leave her home station for the purpose of attending court hearings, just like her FIR had ensured that he would be required to leave his home station for the same purpose.
Then he went and further –and rather drastically– expanded the geographical scope of their litigation by filing a criminal complaint against her, her brother, her parents, and her grandfather in PS Kazipet in Warangal district in Telangana. Thereafter he went to Bihar and filed a criminal complaint against the IO (investigating officer) of his wife’s solitary case, and included the SHO of the concerned police station as an accused person in the said complaint for good measure.
The wife thereafter approached the Supreme Court with a transfer petition. The Supreme Court dissolved their marriage using the power granted to it by Article 142 of the constitution.
Details of this interesting legal contest can be seen in Sneha Singh vs Ashwani Kumar [5] (2023-2024).
One more interesting thing about this litigation is that their divorce contest appears to be still going on (as of the 2nd of October 2025) in Family Court Lucknow inspite of the fact that their marriage was dissolved –and very clearly dissolved– on the 24th of April, 2024 by a division bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Justices Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan. The CNR number of the said case in Lucknow is UPLK020030182023. The case history shows that the said divorce case was disposed of on the 27th of May 2024, but was mysteriously revived on the 14th of June 2024. To add to the mystery there is (as of the 2nd of October 2025) no record of any judgement dated the 24th of April 2024 –including Sneha Singh's judgement– on the website of the Supreme Court.
A husband who demonstrated the power of civil counter cases: Sultana Aabid Khan vs Aabid Ahmed Khan
Top of PageIn Sultana Aabid Khan ＠ Sultana Khan vs Aabid Ahmed Khan ＠ Aabid Khan [6][7] (2024-2025), the wife had filed a DV application against the husband, to which the husband had responded with a custody petition and a suit for injunction, and thereby caused a legal headache for his wife.
Another husband who used civil counter cases to get divorce: Sanghamitra Ghosh vs Kajal Kumar Ghosh
Top of PageHusbands who want to vigorously contest martial disputes are not a new phenomenon, as can be seen in the case titled Sanghamitra Ghosh vs Kajal Kumar Ghosh [8][9] (2004-2006).
Kajal is the husband’s name in the title of this case.
The wife had filed a dowry case U/s 498a of the IPC, a divorce petition under the Hindu Marriage Act, and a maintenance petition under CrPC Section 125 against the husband. The husband retorted with an RCR petition and a petition for custody of their only child, being a son. The custody challenge was a strong move by the husband, and led to the wife agreeing to a divorce on terms agreeable to him.
References:
Top of Page1)Praneet Modi vs Shikha Shah, Transfer Petitions (Civil) Nos. 2000 / 2024 and 2767 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 13 February 2025), Indiankanoon.org; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
2)Praneet Modi vs Shikha Shah, Transfer Petitions (Civil) Nos. 2000 / 2024 and 2767 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 13 February 2025), sci.gov.in; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
3) Gaganjot Kaur vs Taranjeet Singh, Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 3223 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 18 August 2025), Indiankanoon.org; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
4) Gaganjot Kaur vs Taranjeet Singh, Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 3223 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 18 August 2025), sci.gov.in; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
5)Sneha Singh vs Ashwani Kumar, Transfer Petition (Civil) 2626 of 2023 (Supreme Court of India, 24 April 2024), Indiankanoon.org; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
6)Sultana Aabid Khan vs Aabid Ahmed Khan, Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 3073-3078 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 01 August 2025), Indiankanoon.org; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
7)Sultana Aabid Khan vs Aabid Ahmed Khan, Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 3073-3078 / 2024 (Supreme Court of India, 01 August 2025), sci.gov.in; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
8)Sanghamitra Ghosh vs Kajal Kumar Ghosh, Transfer Petition (Civil) 228 of 2004 (Supreme Court of India, 20 November 2006), Indiankanoon.org; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025
9)Sanghamitra Ghosh vs Kajal Kumar Ghosh, Transfer Petition (Civil) 228 of 2004 (Supreme Court of India, 20 November 2006), sci.gov.in; Delhi; Undated; Retrieved on 03rd October 2025