Allegation on spouse character is the worst form of cruelty and amounts to mental torture, the Delhi High Court has ruled while granting divorce to a woman from her husband. Now it is established that allegation on spouse character is cruelty. This is also a form of cruelty.
“As per the settled legal position, casting such aspersions on the character of the spouse has the effect of causing deleterious effect on the mind of such spouse and the same is the worse form of cruelty,” Justice Kailash Gambhir said while setting aside a lower court’s ruling which had dismissed a woman’s plea for divorce.
“The physical beating by the husband on many occasion by itself constitutes cruelty, but the scandalous allegation levelled by him attacking the moral character of the wife or attributing her relationship with some sadhu certainly amounts to worse form of cruelty in the absence of any corroboration to such allegations,” the judge said.
The court’s ruling came on an appeal by the woman seeking divorce on the ground of allegation on spouse character is cruelty, that her husband suspected her fidelity and accused her of having an extra-marital relation with a sadhu.
She challenged the judgment of lower court, which dismissed her plea and not accepted allegation on spouse character is cruelty as a ground for divorce.
The high court also censured the lower court for dismissing the woman’s plea.
“This court fails to comprehend as to how such a view could be taken by the trial court as clearly serious and malicious allegations of the wife having relationship with one sadhu and her staying out of the house during nights also levelled by the husband,” the judge wondered.
According to the woman, she got married as per the Hindu rites in 1980 and after two years of the marriage she was blessed with a daughter.
She said her husband’s attitude suddenly changed after the birth of her daughter as he expected a son. Besides beating the spouse, the husband started putting up allegation on spouse character.
