The Delhi High Court has observed that a husband living with another woman, after long years of separation from his wife with zero possibility of re-union during the ongoing divorce proceedings, cannot disentitle him from seeking divorce on proven grounds of cruelty by the wife.
A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said that if the wife made allegations of cruelty, it should be substantiated in divorce proceedings.
The bench also added that the repeated complaints against the husband with unexplained allegations to several agencies can be termed as nothing but cruelty
The Court made this observation while upholding a family court order granting divorce to the husband on the grounds of cruelty by wife under Section 13 (1) (ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
Dismissing the appeal filed by the wife, the bench said that the parties got married in December 2003, however, their marriage came up as a bed of rocks for them instead of a lifelong bond of happiness.
The husband claimed that the wife had a quarrelsome nature and used to show no respect to his visiting relatives. Moreover, she was also shied from doing the household chores. On this, the bench noted that the woman’s quarrelsome nature got manifested during the court proceedings in 2011 in an FIR registered by her where she had threatened her husband and his family members that she would send him to jail and kill him.
The Court said, “It has been rightly argued that a person who does not shy in threatening and quarreling with the respondent-husband and his family members in the open Court, her conduct as deposed by the appellant-wife at the matrimonial home can very well be accepted. These incidents clearly prove that the appellant-wife and her family members were quarrelsome and the appellant-wife had inflicted physical cruelty upon the respondent-husband.“
As the husband told the court that the wife denied the conjugal relationship, it said that there was no serious rebuttal of the said testimony which reflects that it was the breakdown of the conjugal relationship that is the bedrock of matrimonial relationship.
The bench also noted that the wife made a complaint after filing of the divorce petition by the husband in 2007 and that the FIR under Section 498A of IPC was registered much later the separation of the parties.
The Court said, “It is no doubt true that every person has a right to seek remedy by resorting to the State machinery and simpliciter filing a complaint under Section 498-A IPC would not amount to cruelty, but it cannot be overlooked that various allegations of cruelty had been made by the appellant-wife against the respondent-husband which have not been proved by her in the present proceedings. Even in the criminal trial, the respondent-husband and his family members have been acquitted.“
While the wife alleged that the husband had got married, the Court said that neither any specific details nor any proof whatsoever of the alleged second marriage was presented in her complaints.
The Court said, “Even if it is accepted that the respondent-husband has started living with another woman and has two sons during the pendency of Divorce Petition, that in itself, cannot be termed as cruelty in the peculiar circumstances of this case when the parties have not been co-habiting since 2005.“
It further said, “As such long years of separation with no possibility of re-union, the respondent-husband may have found his peace and comfort by living with another woman, but, that is a subsequent event during the pendency of the Divorce Petition and cannot disentitle the husband from divorce from the wife on the proven grounds of cruelty.“
News Source: https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/delhi-high-court/delhi-high-court-wife-cruelty-husband-living-with-another-woman-divorce-237815
