Case Title: Ravindra Pratap Yadav vs Asha Devi
A division bench of Justice Suneet Kumar and Justice Rajendra Kumar of Allahabad High Court while dissolving a marriage on the ground of the mental cruelty, observed that not allowing spouse to have sexual intercourse by his or her partner for long time without sufficient reason amounts to mental cruelty.
“Undoubtedly, not allowing a spouse for a long time, to have sexual intercourse by his or her partner, without sufficient reason, itself amounts mental cruelty to such spouse…Since there is no acceptable view in which a spouse can be compelled to resume life with the consort, nothing is given by trying to keep the parties tied forever to a marriage than that has ceased to in fact”.
The Court was hearing an appeal filed by a husband against the order of a family court which dismissed his divorce plea under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act.
The appeal was filed by a husband against the family court’s order. He submits that after the Gauna was performed, the wife came to his house and started living. For some time, behavior and conduct of his wife was good but suddenly she changed her gait and refused to live with him as wife. Apathy and her inhuman conduct towards him became apparent in short time. He tried a lot to convince her but she did not establish relationship with him. The husband felt that his marriage with his wife was merely an eyewash because immediately after the “Gauna” serious matrimonial problems developed between them which kept growing.
In the year 1994, through a Panchayat, the couple got mutually divorced after the husband paid permanent alimony of Rs. 22,000 to the wife.
The husband sought a decree of divorce after the wife re-married on the basis of mental cruelty and long desertion.
However, the wife did not appear in court.
The family court then dismissed the husband’s plea observing that there were no grounds of cruelty to grant divorce.
The bench remarked that the family court adopted a hyper-technical approach while dismissing the husband’s plea “It is evident from the record that since long, the parties to the marriage have been living separately, according to plaintiff-appellant, defendant-respondent had no respect for marital bond, denied to discharge obligation of marital liability. There has been a complete breakdown of their marriage”.
