Smriti Shinde, daughter of Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, is seeking a divorce from her husband. Her plea for divorce was rejected by the Supreme Court earlier after her husband refused to give consent. She recently approached the Supreme Court again, seeking divorce without the consent of her husband, citing “irretrievable breakdown” of marriage.

According to her petition, ‘to make a woman wait for her husband’s consent for divorce when she is unable, mentally and emotionally, to continue in the marriage is a violation of her dignity’. Does this not smack of bias against men? If a wife withholds her consent for divorce, is it not a violation of the man’s dignity?

The petition further says that “the law cannot compel a woman who is emotionally and mentally unable to cope with a marriage to remain bound in wedlock to her spouse even when they have lived apart for a year and thereby it is established that the marriage is dead”. Is it okay then for the law to compel a man to remain bound in wedlock to his spouse even when they have lived apart for just not a year but decades and it has been established that the marriage is dead. Incidentally, a Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court rejected Prabhakar Nikam’s plea for a divorce from his wife last year, saying there was ‘no ground for a divorce’. Nikam, at the time of the court ruling, had been staying separately from his wife for the last 19 years. His charges of mental cruelty and desertion against his wife were not taken into account. If Prabhakar Nikam’s wife had filed for divorce, would the court have acted in the same way?

Shinde’s plea for waiver of mutual consent for divorce is open to misuse, say women’s activists. Former Law Commission member and women’s rights activist Kirti Singh says women who want divorce should be able to get it. Does this not smack of bias against men? Women who want divorce should be able to get it, but when a man wants divorce all kinds of hurdles will be put in his path. Singh says provision of mutual consent could be waived in individual cases, but a general change in law could not be beneficial to women.

What else does one expect to hear from Feminazis? Such demands are brazen and shameless. Feminists would be ecstatic if mutual consent waiver is given only to rich, educated and powerful women (kin of ministers for example) who want divorce. They want men to continue suffering and even be denied divorce. Laws should be made gender neutral and divorce laws should be modernised so that people trapped in unhappy marriages (men and women) can find a way out. No-fault divorce should be introduced in India so that men and women at the receiving end in abusive relationships find a way out.

(All material and facts sourced from reports from The Times of India, Indian Express, DNA).