Wife’s Family Insisting Husband To Abandon His Parents And Become ‘Ghar Jamai’ Amounts To Cruelty: Delhi High Court Grants Divorce

The Delhi High Court has observed that insistence of a wife’s family for her husband to abandon his parents, become a “Ghar Jamai” and live in their house amounts to cruelty.

A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna granted divorce to a couple, who got married in 2001 and started living separately after a year, on the ground of cruelty and desertion under the Hindu Marriage Act.

The court said that for a couple to be deprived of each other’s company proves that the marriage cannot survive and that such deprivation of conjugal relationship is an act of extreme cruelty.

The appellant-husband had made allegations of being subjected to cruelty and claimed that there existed no conjugal relationship between him and his wife (respondent). He also alleged that there was insistence on the part of his wife and her family that he should shift to Delhi and live as a “ghar jamai”.

“The insistence of the family of the Respondent for the Appellant to abandon his parents and become a 'Ghar Jamai' and live in their house amounts to cruelty,” the court said.

It relied on Supreme Court's decision in Narendra vs K. Meena (2016) where it was held that a son has a moral and legal obligation to take care of his parents when they become old and asking a son to separate from his family amounts to cruelty.

The bench was deciding the husband’s appeal against a family court order dismissing his petition for divorce on ground of cruelty and desertion. He claimed that after six months of their marriage, the wife told him that she was not willing to stay with him. She went to her parental home in February 2002 wherein their daughter was born. The husband claimed that he went to see his daughter in April, 2004, but was not permitted to meet her.

It was the husband’s case that the wife filed an FIR in 2007 against him alleging cruelty by him. However, he was acquitted in the matter in 2016. On the other hand, the wife claimed that she was being beaten and subjected to acts of cruelty but, the Court noted that she was not able to substantiate it with any incident.

Observing that making false complaint in itself is an act of cruelty and that the onus was on the wife to establish that she was subjected to cruelty or had any cogent reason to live separately from the husband, Court said it is a case of 'mental cruelty' against the husband.

It noted that the wife had alleged that the husband had re-married during the subsistence of their marriage in 2015 and also had a child from his second marriage. The court said that the husband admitted having a child but claimed that he had not married the woman but was in a live-in relationship.

“Here is the case where long separation has forced both the appellant and respondent, to apparently find companionship in a third person. Be that as it may, it is evident that the evidence on record sufficiently proves that the respondent had withdrawn from the company of the appellant for which she has not been able to give any cogent reason. Both petitioner and respondent may have got into a relationship during the pendency of the proceedings, but the fact remains that on the date of filing the petition, the respondent had withdrawn from the company of the petitioner for no cogent reason,” the court said.

As the wife and her daughter told the court that they could not pay accommodation rent of Rs.8,500 per month for the last three months, it was suggested that the woman may apply for allotment of a flat in EWS Category.

As a BPL Card was required for the said purpose, the Food & Supply Officer assured the bench that the BPL Card shall be issued within 15 days as and when an application is received from the wife.

However, Senior Advocate Sunil Mittal, who was present in the court, came forward and voluntarily agreed to pay three months’ rent amount of Rs. 25,500 to the wife.

“We appreciate the magnanimous gesture of learned Senior Counsel for his support to a family who by the circumstances, have been pushed into a state of penury,” the court said.

Case Title: X v. Y

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 747

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