India and Bangladesh Courts Advance Women's Rights in Landmark Rulings

The Supreme Court of India overturned lower‑court findings that a professionally qualified wife’s decision to continue her dental career and relocate for her child’s medical care amounted to cruelty or desertion. The bench described the earlier judgments as “regressive,” “ultra‑conservative” and reflecting a “feudalistic” mindset, emphasizing that marriage does not erase a woman’s independent identity. While the court set aside the cruelty and desertion allegations, it upheld the divorce on grounds of an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

Bangladesh’s High Court issued a writ prohibiting the determination and public disclosure of a fetus’s sex, calling the practice discriminatory and “immoral.” The ruling invokes constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality and life, orders digital monitoring and strict supervision, and aims to curb sex‑selective abortions that contribute to female infanticide.