By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) on Wednesday condemned what it called a “distressing and sorrowful” practice: wielding infertility, or even its mere suspicion, as a cudgel against women in legal disputes.
In a sharply worded ruling, the court dismissed a petition by Saleh Muhammad, fined him Rs500,000, and declared such tactics an abuse of the judicial process that “humiliates and degrades” its targets.
The decision, authored by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, stemmed from a decade-long legal battle waged by Mehnaz Begum against her former husband. It underscored a broader judicial stand against entrenched social biases that turn courts into arenas of personal degradation.
“This social prejudice routinely results in courts of law becoming venues for humiliating a woman under the guise of litigation,” Justice Afridi wrote, framing the ruling as a defence of dignity.
The saga began in 2006, when Saleh Muhammad wed Mehnaz Begum. By 2007, court records show, he had subjected her to physical abuse and abandoned her at her parents’ home. He then cut off contact, moved abroad, remarried, and had two children.
Left without support, Mehnaz Begum turned to the courts in 2015, seeking her dower, dowry articles, and maintenance. Saleh Muhammad countered with a claim that she was medically unfit for conjugal duties and infertile, questioning her very “womanhood” under the law.
Medical tests debunked his assertion, yet he pressed the allegation relentlessly through three tiers of judicial review, from a trial court to the Peshawar High Court’s March 3, 2025, judgment, which he appealed to the Supreme Court.
The justices found his persistence troubling. “While it is possible that the petitioner viewed this as a genuine grievance or felt wronged in some manner,” the court noted, “the manner in which this allegation, targeting the very identity of the respondent, was pursued remains troubling.” The tactic, they said, forced Mehnaz Begum into “profound personal humiliation” over a decade.
The ruling went beyond the case’s specifics, delivering a resounding rejection of such strategies. “It must be acknowledged without equivocation that infertility, even if present, was no ground to deny a woman her dower or maintenance and it was certainly no ground to challenge her womanhood,” Justice Afridi wrote. “To convert such personal pain into a legal weapon is not only an abuse of the process, but an affront to human dignity.”
Invoking cultural resonance, he added a religious dimension: “The Holy Quran has described the spouse as a garment; the relationship between a husband and wife is likened to that of libaas in our religion.” This, he explained, casts spouses as sources of mutual protection and respect, an ideal Saleh Muhammad’s actions subverted.
The court reserved special emphasis for women’s vulnerability in Pakistan. “Lest we forget: women in our society constitute a vulnerable group, whose dignity requires vigilant protection and care,” Justice Afridi wrote, elevating the ruling into a call for systemic safeguarding.
The Rs500,000 fine, payable to Mehnaz Begum, served as both punishment and deterrent. The court deemed Saleh Muhammad’s petition “frivolous and cruel,” a drain on judicial resources and a source of undue suffering. “This court would be remiss in its duty were it to allow such conduct to pass without sanction,” the justices concluded.
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