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The Supreme Court clarified that the divorce application submitted by the husband had no pleadings regarding mental cruelty and desertion. (ANI file)
The court said that if the husband had really suffered mental cruelty while living with his wife, he would not have waited six years to file a petition for divorce on that basis.
The Madras High Court recently noted that when a wife files a lawsuit to protect only her property rights and custody of her children, it can never be a reason for mental cruelty to the husband in divorce proceedings.
Chief Justice R Vijayakumar noted this while considering an appeal by a wife against a district judge’s decision which granted a divorce decision to her husband on grounds of mental cruelty and desertion.
The district judge pointed out that the husband did not abandon his wife, but was forced to leave the marital home and instead of taking any steps to restore marital rights, the wife started legal proceedings to cause problems for her husband.
However, the Supreme Court indicated that the request for divorce submitted by the husband lacked pleadings regarding mental cruelty and desertion, as well as the husband’s acknowledgment of the aforementioned allegation did not support his claim.
And the court said: Simply living apart from one of the spouses is not considered desertion if it is accompanied by a reasonable cause, and if it is without his consent or without his desire. It includes willful neglect of the petitioner by the other party to the marriage.”
Regarding the mental cruelty claim, the court noted that there was indeed a property dispute between the spouses and that it was the husband who had concealed this fact from the courts.
The court also noted that the wife alleged that the husband had entered into a second marriage for which the bigamy case had been filed earlier. The court noted that the wife even gave details of the second wife’s name, address, date and place of marriage. However, the pair was acquitted in the same matter.
The Court held that, as the acquittal was not recorded, it was therefore difficult to determine whether the husband had been acquitted on suspicion or on the grounds that a false allegation had been made against him.
The court said, “Therefore, the wife’s filing of the aforementioned cases cannot be considered as psychological cruelty caused to the husband.”
Moreover, the court asserted that, on the other hand, it was the husband who had made a serious allegation of adultery against the wife, and although unsuccessful before the criminal court, chose to repeat the same allegation in the divorce proceedings.
The court held, “Therefore, the conclusion of the First Court of Appeal that the wife’s position is to harass her husband with one petition after another is legally untenable.”
Moreover, while noting that the petition for divorce was filed by the husband six years after he left the marital home, the court held that if the husband had really suffered mental cruelty, he would have immediately filed for divorce on the said ground when he left his home.
Therefore, the district judge’s decision to annul the order issued by the court of first instance not to issue a judgment of divorce, was therefore liable to be annulled by the court.
The court noted that “it is clear that the parties to the marriage are living apart only because of a pending property dispute…”.
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