Court allows divorce on grounds of mental cruelty to husband

An Indian state Chhattisgarh High Court bench granted a decree of divorce on grounds of mental cruelty to the husband.

The court declared that if a wife insists that her husband to get separated from his parents and threatens to implicate him in a false dowry demand case, it would be counted as mental cruelty.

Justices Goutam Bhaduri and NK Chandravanshi heard a petition filed by a husband challenging the order passed by a Family Court in 2017 by which his plea seeking divorce on the ground of cruelty was rejected.

The judges noted that the marriage of the couple hardly worked for two months. The wife often left her matrimonial house as she wanted to live alone with her husband who made several attempts to reconcile but in vain.

“In such a lower middle-class family, it is the responsibility of the eldest son to take care of his elderly parents, as he has deposed also in his statement. In such a situation, if the wife persistently creates constraints upon the husband to get separated from his family and to live with her at her parental house and also threatened him that, otherwise she will implicate him in the dowry case, it, itself amounts to mental cruelty on the husband,” the high court remarked.

The Family Court was unjustified in making such an observation, the court said.