'Free-Willed' Wife Meeting Civil Society Members Sans Forming An Illegal Relation Isn't Cruelty Against Husband: Allahabad HC

A bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh, however, added that a wife's conduct of only seeking to keep alive a legal fiction of her marriage, without any reason to keep alive that relationship, and refusing to cohabit with her husband may amount to cruelty against the husband.

With these observations, the Court allowed the husband's appeal to challenge a family court's judgment and order dismissing the divorce suit he had instituted. Importantly, the husband had pressed for a divorce decree on two grounds: mental cruelty and desertion by the wife.

It was the case of the appellant-husband that the parties got married in February 1990, and in December 1995, a male child was born to the parties. The parties resided intermittently for a total of only 8 months and they last cohabited together in December 2001 (as per the wife).

Both parties admitted that 23 years have passed since they last cohabited, and now they live separately. At the respondent's instance, no proceeding for restitution of conjugal rights had been filed.

It was the husband's categorical allegation that his wife was in an adulterous relationship with another man, and she, being a free-willed person, would go out of her own to the market and other places and did not observe 'Parda'. He also submitted that his wife used to pass on verbal insults to him due to his poor economic status. He claimed that such acts and other acts constituted cruelty against him.

Against this backdrop, the HC, in its order, noted that the act of the wife, being free-willed or a person who would travel on her own or meet up with other members of the civil society without forming any illegal or immoral relationship, may not be described as an act of cruelty committed.

Regarding the husband's argument of alleged verbal insults, the Court noted that it was not disputed that the parties' marriage was arranged and the husband's family status was known to the wife, and still, the marriage was solemnised.

“…normal relations have also existed between the parties. The acts of insults that were allegedly caused by the respondent have neither been described with details of time or place of occurrence, nor such acts have been proven before the learned Court below. To that extent, we find no error in the order of the learned Court below in not acting on the plea of insults caused by the respondent,” the Court observed further.

Furthermore, regarding the wife's alleged immoral acts, the Court noted that to prove the husband's allegation, no direct or credible evidence was presented to prove that she was actually involved in an immoral act.

The Court, however, noted that the parties have been living separately for the past 23 years, and the wilful act of the wife and her refusal (even now) to cohabit with the appellant-husband to revive her matrimonial relationship appeared to be an act of desertion committed of degree as may itself lead to the  dissolution of her marriage.

“Here, we note, the respondent has not only refused cohabitation with the appellant, but she has also never made any effort to seek restitution of her conjugal rights,” the Court noted.

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed, and the impugned judgment and order of the Family Court were set aside, and the marriage between the parties was dissolved.

Case title - Mahendra Prasad vs. Smt. Bindu Devi

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