New Delhi, Oct 24 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has held that questioning a husband’s legitimacy and making reprehensive allegations against his mother amount to mental cruelty, a ground for divorce.
The high court, while upholding the divorce decree granted by a family court, said the woman’s proven acts of cruelty, including the use of abusive language, physical violence and social isolation, stand on their own footing and are severe enough to warrant the dissolution of the marriage.
“Words and communications of the sort proved in this case are not innocuous. The law recognises that mental cruelty may be visited by persistent and deliberate verbal abuse and conduct that degrades a spouse and injures reputation and self-respect,” a bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar said in a judgment passed on October 17.
The high court passed the order on an appeal filed by the woman claiming that the family court failed to consider the acts of cruelty meted out to her and wrongly granted divorce to husband.
The woman, a Group A officer of the Indian Railway Traffic Service, and the man, who is an advocate by profession, got married in January 2010 and parted ways in March 2011. It was a second marriage for both of them.
The family court granted divorce decree in favour of the husband in 2023 on the ground of cruelty meted out to him by his estranged wife.
The woman, in her appeal, claimed that the man humiliated her by making caste-based remarks, coerced her to perform domestic chores despite her professional responsibilities and subjected her to a barrage of false and frivolous litigation.
The high court, however, held that mere assertion of counter-cruelty by the wife would not automatically nullify her established acts of cruelty.
“Two wrongs do not make a right. The appellant’s (wife) proven acts of cruelty, including the use of abusive language, physical violence, and social isolation, stand on their own footing and are severe enough to warrant the dissolution of the marriage,” it said.
The court noted that the woman sent “vile, derogatory, and scandalous” messages to the man, including questioning his legitimacy and making reprehensible allegations against his mother.
“Specific messages… which included terms such as ‘bastard’, ‘son of a bitch’, and suggestions that his mother should ‘earn through prostitution’, are by themselves sufficient to constitute mental cruelty of the gravest kind,” it observed.
The court said the text messages contained imputations of illegitimacy, filthy epithets directed at the husband’s mother and other degrading expressions, a pattern of conduct which, cumulatively, the family court was entitled to regard as causing grave mental agony to him. PTI SKV ZMN
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