Mental cruelty valid ground for divorce, rules SC

The Supreme Court has held that mental cruelty can be valid grounds for seeking divorce.The ruling was handed down yesterday by a bench that...

The Supreme Court has held that mental cruelty can be valid grounds for seeking divorce.

The ruling was handed down yesterday by a bench that dismissed an appeal by Parveen Mehta against a judgement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court granting her husband Inderjit Mehta a divorce on grounds of mental cruelty.

The SC stated in its judgement: ‘‘The provision of Section 13 of the Act is comprehensive enough to include cases of physical and mental cruelty. It was formerly thought that actual physical harm or reasonable apprehension of it was the prime ingredient of matrimonial offence.’’

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The court said the modern view was that mental cruelty can cause even more grievous injury and create in the mind of the injured spouse a reasonable apprehension that it would be harmful or unsafe to live with the other party.

The judges said the allegation of cruelty as a matrimonial offence was based on the husband’s assertion that right from day one after marriage his wife was not prepared to cooperate with him in having sexual intercourse.

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