Court sets aside husband’s divorce decree, says he was ‘hell-bent on getting rid of wife’

“Having thus seen the material available on record, including the evidence of the witnesses, it is manifest that the respondent-husband was hell-bent in getting rid of the appellant-wife on one pretext or the other,” the August 6 order read. 

Rejecting the husband’s claim that his wife looked down upon him because she was a government nurse while he worked in the private sector, or because of his dark complexion, the court observed that the couple knew each other before marriage. Had the wife genuinely felt that way, she would not have entered into wedlock by “nipping the things at the bud” itself, the court added.

Government nurse wife, private employee husband

The husband, who allegedly got married to the woman in February 2019, claimed that his wife frequently quarrelled with him and his family members and refused to cohabit, taunted him regarding his complexion and having a private job. 

He also claimed that she left the matrimonial home in January 2020 without any sufficient cause. The husband further alleged that despite several reconciliation efforts and social interventions, his estranged wife failed to return to the matrimonial home, threatened to implicate him and his family in false dowry cases and remained living separately for a considerable period. The husband later moved the family courts seeking divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion by the wife. 

The bench found that the wife never intended to permanently abandon the marriage and that the husband had failed to prove cruelty or desertion through evidence placed on record.

On the contrary, the wife claimed that she never refused to discharge her matrimonial obligations and had always been willing to reside with her husband. She alleged that her husband and his family members subjected her to physical and mental harassment for dowry, demanded Rs 5 lakh, her salary, ATM card and compelled her to lodge complaints before the competent authorities. 

The wife further submitted that she had resided in the matrimonial home from August 2021 to September 2021 in an effort to preserve her relationship, but her husband failed to cohabit. 

The family court, later, allowed the husband’s plea and granted divorce, dissolving the couple’s marriage. Aggrieved, the woman moved the high court with this appeal. 

‘A fragile marriage’

Noting that the couple’s marriage proved a “fragile one” and that, hardly months after, the “acrimony” between the two started appearing on the surface for one reason or the other. 

The high court clarifed that trivial issues cannot lead to dissolution of a marriage and found no element of cruelty at the hands of the wife in the case. “Mere unhappiness and dissatisfaction of one party at the instance of another cannot by itself constitute cruelty warranting dissolution of marriage”, the court added. 

Noting that the woman has also filed an application for saving her marriage, the court found that she has categorically stated that since she was having a government employment and the husband was in a private job and for that he could have come to stay with her at the place where she was posted till she was transferred.

Holding that the wife never intended to permanently abandon the marriage and that the husband had failed to prove cruelty or desertion through evidence, the high court allowed the woman’s appeal and set aside the divorce decree granted by the family court.

Arguments 

The woman was represented by advocate Rakesh Kumar Thakur, who argued that the family court erred in granting divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion despite the consistent stand of the wife that she was always willing and ready to reside with the husband and discharge her matrimonial obligations. 

Representing the man, advocate Vivek Kumar Agrawal submitted that the family court had rightly concluded that the wife had treated the husband with cruelty and had deserted him for a prolonged period without any justifiable cause.