The high court on Wednesday advised a 52-year-old man not to insist on having a second child and to live with his estranged wife for a month in an attempt to save their marriage.

The division bench of Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice Tapan Dutta asked the couple from Burdwan to come to court after a month for a decision on the husband’s divorce petition.

“Your demand for a second child, which you wanted 14 years back, is not relevant now. So, we advise you to drop the demand and enjoy a happy conjugal life,” the bench told the husband, while urging the wife to “cooperate” with her husband and “lead a happy life”.

The couple have a 19-year-old daughter who now lives with her mother.

Would the court advice to the 52-year-old have any medical basis? “Medically there’s no reason why a man can’t become a father at 52. In our previous generations it was common for men aged 50-55 to have children,” said Rahul Sen, a consultant obstretician and gynaecologist. “Charlie Chaplin became a father at 73,” added consultant gynaecologist Ranjit Chakraborty.

In this case, the husband’s lawyers, Ashok Banerjee and Subrata Chowdhury, said the woman had left their client with the daughter in 1995, when he demanded a second child. Since then she has been living with her daughter in her parents’ house in Bhatar, Burdwan, and he has been living alone in Monteshwar, in the same district.

In 2000, the husband moved a divorce plea in a Burdwan court. “The petition was rejected in 2007, prompting our client, an employee of a nationalised bank, to move an appeal in the high court,” Banerjee added.

After hearing out both sides, the division bench had asked the couple to appear in court so that their differences could be resolved. When the warring duo turned up, the judges decided to talk to them in-camera.

Sources said when one of the judges asked the husband to start living with his wife again, he said he would do so only if his wife agreed to fulfil his wish. The bench then advised him to be happy with his teenaged daughter and not try to father another child.
“Try and realise the consequences of having a second child at this age. When he/she would go to school with you, people would mistake you for his/her grandfather,” they observed.