The bench said that making unfair and false allegations against the character of her husband by the wife harms his reputation in the society and amounts to cruelty.
The bench said that making unfair and false allegations against the character of her husband by the wife harms his reputation in the society and amounts to cruelty.
The Bombay High Court has held that defaming the husband and calling him a feminist and an alcoholic without substantiating the charges amounted to cruelty, and upheld a family court order that dissolved the marriage of a Pune couple.
A division bench of Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Sharmila Deshmukh, in its order passed on October 12, dismissed an appeal filed by a 50-year-old woman seeking annulment of her marriage to a retired army officer by a family court in Pune in November 2005. The order was challenged. ,
The man died during the HC’s appeal hearing, following which the court directed the addition of his legal heir as the respondent.
The woman claimed in her appeal that her husband was a feminist and an alcoholic and because of these evils she was deprived of her marital rights.
The bench said that making unfair and false allegations against the character of her husband by the wife harms his reputation in the society and is cruelty.
The HC in its order said that the woman has not produced any evidence to substantiate her allegations other than her statement.
The counsel for the deceased man told the court that the petitioner woman had caused mental agony to her husband by making false and defamatory allegations.
The court referred to the husband’s statement before the family court in which he had claimed that the petitioner had separated him from his children and grandchildren.
The High Court observed, “It is an established position in law that ‘cruelty’ can be broadly defined as a conduct which causes such mental pain and suffering to the other party that for that party It will not be possible to live with another.” ,
The Bench further observed that the husband of the petitioner was an ex-Army man, who retired as a Major, belonged to the upper strata of the society and had a reputation in the society.
The HC said, “The reputation of the petitioner has been tarnished in the society by making unwarranted, false and baseless allegations relating to the character of the respondent and labeling him as an alcoholic and a feminist.”
“Considering the above, we find that the conduct of the petitioner amounts to cruelty under section 13(1) (ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act,” the court said.