Madhya Pradesh High Court grants divorce to man whose wife set herself on fire and blamed in-laws

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently granted divorce to a man after finding that his wife had set herself on fire and later blamed his relatives for the incident.

The Division Bench of Justice Vishal Dhagat and Justice Anuradha Shukla ruled that such a drastic step by a spouse is sufficient to cause dread and fear in the other spouse to avoid any bonding in the matrimonial relationship.

“In the present case the facts established reveal that in a moment of despair, respondent/wife set herself on fire and later put a blame on the relatives of the husband. This dreadful act itself is sufficient to hold that she has committed mental cruelty with appellant/husband,” the Court said in the judgment passed on August 26.

The trial court had earlier refused to grant the man divorce. The couple had married in 2003 and had a child. However, the husband and wife had been living separately since 2005. He filed for divorce in 2006.

It was the husband’s allegation that the wife’s behavior towards him had become unpleasant just one month after marriage. He alleged that she immolated herself in 2005 with kerosene oil, leading to burn injuries. However, the wife said that her in-laws poured kerosene on her and set her on fire.

Having examined the evidence, the High Court rejected the wife's allegation. It noted that the wife had claimed that the fire was extinguished by neighbours but she failed to produce any of them as witnesses.

“Any such neighbor would have been a very relevant witness to establish that it was not a case of self immolation, but a criminal act committed by the relatives of appellant, still, there is no whisper to explain why the respondent/wife did not examine such an important witness,” the Court said.

On the wife’s allegation that the husband refused to cohabit with her on account of her disfiguration and physical changes in her appearance after the burn incident, the Court said that the accusation appeared to be far from truth.

“If intervention of respected members of society was the reason for not initiating criminal proceedings against a wrong doer regarding the burn episode then respondent/wife had a very formidable right to once again approach those respected members of the society and solicit their intervention to convince the appellant/husband for cohabitation and restitution of their marriage ties,” it added

The Court proceeded to reject the wife's claim that her husband had expressed feelings of loathing regarding the wife's appearance after she suffered burns. There was no evidence to indicate this, the Court held.

“In the overall perspective we find that respondent/wife suffered a painful incident sustaining burn injuries for which she holds the relatives of appellant/husband responsible, but she has not produced any reliable evidence on this point and had also failed to initiate any criminal proceedings against the wrong doers,” it concluded, while dissolving the marriage under Hindu Marriage Act.

Advocate Eshan Datt represented the husband.