The Supreme Court said that a wife is not a chattel and husband cannot be her guardian. The observation was made during the hearing in the Hadiya case on Monday. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud interacted with 25-year old Hadiya for nearly half-an-hour and posed questions on her life, ambition, studies, and hobbies. When the Bench asked Hadiya to name any relative or near acquaintance to be named as her local guardian in college at Salem in Tamil Nadu, she said her husband could be her guardian and she does not want anyone else in that role.