New Delhi: Delhi High Court has highlighted that the law fails to evaluate a homemaker’s contribution to her family, and called for recognition of the role. When it comes to her efforts in helping build assets, a homemaker’s effort remains “hidden and downplayed”, it said.The bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar made this point while rejecting the plea of a homemaker seeking 50% ownership over a property that she once shared with her husband, when they were together.“We believe that the time has come that such contributions be taken to their meaningful conclusion,” the court said. “However, we take note of the fact that currently, there exists no statutory basis accounting for the recognition of such contributions of homemakers for the purpose of making any determination on ownership rights,” the bench said.The high court’s order came on the woman’s plea challenging a family court veridct that rejected her appeal seeking equal right over the property her husband had purchased when they were together. The couple later had a matrimonial discord.While upholding the family court’s order rejecting the woman’s plea, the high court flagged that in time, the legislature might want to bring measures to ensure that the contribution of homemakers is reflected meaningfully and can be used to determine their property rights. “One must not forget that, in a vast multitude of households in this country, especially in those households where there is no assistance in terms of domestic help etc., the presence of a full-time homemaker permits the family to discount various other expenses,” the court said. This, in appropriate cases, allows for the availability of a larger corpus of funds as well as allows a faamily to generate a certain amount of disposable income. This can be used in a gainful way, such as “in the purchase of a residential property,” the court pointed out.In her appeal, the woman said that the wife’s role as a homemaker enables the husband to engage in gainful employment and contribute directly to the acquisition of family assets, and therefore, any property acquired during the marriage, whether in the name of the husband or wife, must be treated as the product of their joint efforts.The high court, however, clarified that merely staying in the matrimonial home cannot by itself give the wife the right of ownership over properties in the husband’s name. It emphasised that a legitimate and enforceable claim to the husband’s property must rest on proof of meaningful and substantive contribution. In the absence of it, ownership would remain with the title holder.
