A husband’s insistence that his wife must live alongside the woman with whom he is having an extramarital affair will amount to mental cruelty of the highest degree, the Jharkhand High Court recently observed while dissolving a marriage that had remained broken since 2019.
A Division Bench of Justices Sujit Narayan Prasad and Pradeep Kumar Srivastava held that the husband compelling the wife to accept his affair with another woman under the guise of a "younger sister" shatters matrimonial trust irreparably.
Hence, it allowed the appeal filed by the wife, a medical practitioner, challenging a November 2023 order of a family court at Hazaribagh which had dismissed her divorce petition filed under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
The High Court held that the family court had appreciated the evidence in a piecemeal manner and overlooked the principle of preponderance of probabilities applicable to matrimonial proceedings.
"Marriage is a relationship built on mutual trust, companionship and shared experiences. Relationship of wife and husband is based on the trust and respect to have upon each other and if it is broken it is non-repairable as the trust is the foundation of marriage," the Court observed.
The parties, both doctors, married in February, 2018, and lived in Dhanbad. While the husband was posted at Primary Health Centre in Tundi, the wife was employed with Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL).
They began living separately in September 2019.
The wife alleged that the husband entered into an extramarital relationship with a widow. Though the husband had executed a written bond during a family intervention undertaking to cease contact, he continued the relationship.
When the wife protested, she was subjected to physical assaults with household implements like a broom and a mop stick, causing medical complications, including a slip-disc and traumatic osteoarthritis.
The husband denied the allegations and claimed the medical prescriptions from a clinic owned by the wife's father were fabricated. He had also previously obtained an ex-parte decree for restitution of conjugal rights in January 2023.
The High Court held that the medical documents could not be brushed aside merely because they emanated from the clinic of the wife's father. It further observed that the husband's conduct compelled the wife to leave her matrimonial home.
Relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in Samar Ghosh v. Jaya Ghosh, the Bench noted that prolonged separation since 2019 itself established that the marital bond was irreparably damaged.
Accordingly, the Court dissolved the marriage and granted liberty to the wife to seek permanent alimony under Section 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act before the Family Court.
Advocates Abhishek Thakur and Pratyush Navneet represented the appellant-wife.
Advocate Soumitra Baroi appeared for the respondent-husband.