The Delhi High Court has recently observed that a husband cohabitating with another woman, after separating from his wife years ago due to no possibility of reconciliation during the pendency of the divorce petition, 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 the allegations of cruelty made by the wife should be examined in divorce cases.
The bench also said that repeated complaints against the husband with unexplained allegations to various legal agencies cannot point towards anything except cruelty.
The Court observed it while upholding a family court order granting divorce to the husband on the ground of cruelty by the wife under Section 13 (1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
Along with dismissing the appeal of the wife, the bench said that while the parties got married in December 2003, their marriage turned out to be a bed of rocks from the first day instead of happiness.
The husband claimed that his wife had a quarrelsome nature and she didn’t show any respect to his relatives visiting his home sometimes. She also didn’t do household tasks actively. In this regard, the bench noted that the wife’s quarrelsome nature was witnessed during the court proceedings in 2011 in an FIR filed by her where she had threatened her husband and his family members to not only put them behind bars but also to kill them.
It also 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 claimed that the wife denied him a conjugal relationship, the Court said that there was no serious rebuttal of the said testimony which shows that there was a breakdown of the conjugal relationship which is the backbone of the matrimonial relationship.
The bench also noted that the wife filed a complaint after filing the Divorce Petition by the husband in 2007 and that the FIR under Section 498A of IPC was registered after a prolonged separation of the couple.
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.“
On the other hand, the wife alleged that the husband had got married, in which, the Court said that neither any specific details nor any proof whatsoever of the alleged second marriage was provided 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 added, “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
