"Quarrel" Involves Both Parties, Cannot Be A Reason To Grant Divorce On Grounds Of Cruelty: Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court has held that a "quarrel" between husband and wife would be attributed to both parties and that it would be a part of the normal "wear and tear" of marital life, and could not be grounds to allow divorce on the ground of cruelty.

A division bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Uday Kumar held:

"The term “quarrel”, by its very definition, involves two parties. As such, fault cannot be attributed solely to one of the parties for an altercation or quarrel. Thus, the consistent case of P.W.2 in his cross-examination that the spouses quarrelled between themselves is not sufficient to attribute any cruelty to the respondent-wife...the exact role of either of the spouses in such altercations cannot be fixed. Thus, the only so-called corroborative evidence of the plaint case is no evidence of cruelty at all but might at best indicate towards the natural wear and tear of married life."

The plaintiff/appellant-husband instituted a suit for divorce on the grounds of cruelty against the respondent-wife. The said suit was dismissed on contest, against which the present appeal was preferred.

Husband's ground of cruelty was an undated undertaking signed by the respondent-wife, which was marked as Exhibit-1 in the suit. Much reliance was placed on the said document by the counsel for the appellant-husband to argue that the same should be construed as an admission on the part of the respondent-wife regarding her cruelty.

The appellant-husband submitted that due to the cruel activities of the respondent-wife towards the appellant, his widow mother and grandmother, the appellant got frightened and informed the local club and other well-wishers, after which the respondent gave an undertaking in writing that she would be restrained from doing such “inhuman and cruel activities."

In his examination-in-chief dated September 21, 2011, the appellant-husband tendered the document (Exhibit-1), that is the purported undertaking, and proved the same.

It was observed that none came forward from the household of the appellant-husband to corroborate his case of cruelty. P.W.2, a neighbour and a local club member living near the matrimonial home of the parties was the only other witness apart from the husband to support the plaint.e. Such absence of corroborative evidence by eyewitnesses is itself an indicator of the falsity of the plaint case in respect of cruelty, the court said.

Accordingly, while the court noted that the marriage had irretrievably broken down, it stated that the same was not a grounds for marriage in India and that the husband's actions had not been tantamount to cruelty. Thus the lea was dismissed.

Case: Pankaj Mukherjee Vs. Rina Mukherjee nee Biswas

Case No: FA 53 of 2020

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Cal) 282

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