‘Not chattels’: Telangana High Court slams ‘unprecedented’ order banning wife from approaching husband amid divorce plea

Family court’s order

• In this case, the husband had sought divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, on grounds of cruelty, alleging that his wife was of unsound mind and had a mental condition.
• During the pendency of the divorce proceedings, the husband filed an application before the family court for an ad interim injunction restraining the wife from coming anywhere near him or to his house and also to his workplace.
• The application was premised on the grounds that the wife had issues with anger management and displayed psychopathic behaviour and hysteria.
• The husband also stated that the wife made his life miserable through persistent nagging and complaints.
• The family court restrained the wife from going near the husband, his house or his workplace during the pendency of the divorce plea.
• The reason given by the court in allowing the husband’s plea was that the wife had a mental condition and behaved abnormally in front of the husband’s family members.
• Feeling aggrieved by the order passed by the family court, the wife approached the Telangana High Court.

Arguments

• The counsel for the wife argued that the family court erred in placing undue reliance on routine matrimonial incidents cited by the husband and, on that basis, concluded that the wife had a mental condition.
• It was submitted that such findings were arrived at without any supporting medical evidence.
• On the other hand, the senior counsel for the husband emphasised that the parties had lived together for only about 13 months and relied on specific incidents to contend that the wife displayed extreme aggression and uncontrollable behaviour.
• It was further submitted that the wife left the matrimonial home in November 2024 pursuant to a prior court order, and that the husband’s family members were also affected by the dispute, allegedly facing displacement and mental and physical distress due to the wife’s conduct.

‘Drastic order’

The Telangana High Court held that restraining a spouse from approaching the other during the pendency of matrimonial proceedings amounts to a drastic order.

“The impugned order is incomprehensible in many places making it difficult to assess the reasons for such a drastic order against the wife,” it observed.

The bench noted that the trial court’s order was premised on the allegations made by the husband and that it accepted the allegations without delving into a deeper examination of the explanations/counter-allegations made by the wife.

The Telangana High Court remarked that the family court’s finding that the wife had a “psychiatric” and “psychopathic” disorder was bereft of any evidence.

“The assumption that the wife suffers from mental disorder can only be arrived at on the basis of medical records and/or expert evidence. The Trial Court appears to have reached this finding solely on the basis of individual incidents which (allegedly) showed that the wife is suffering from anger management issues,” the bench noted.

It warned that such radical assumptions can have serious social and professional consequences for an individual.

“The impugned order records that the appellant has a ‘psychic disorder’ without recognizing that the word ‘psychic’ has an entirely different connotation which may not even signify a negative trait,” it said.

The Telangana High Court found that such words were loosely used without due regard to the stigmatic repercussions on the wife. It further noted that the effect of the injunction was akin to convicting and declaring the wife guilty without a full trial. “In effect, the wife has been convicted of the offence and declared guilty even without trial,” the court observed.

Holding the family court’s order to be “unilateral, unreasonable and unreasoned”, the Telangana High Court set aside the injunction dated September 8, 2025, and allowed the appeal.