Allahabad High Court recently observed that if a spouse doesn’t allow the other partner to have a sexual intercourse for a longer period of time without any reason, it will amount to mental cruelty.
The bench comprising Justice Suneet Kumar and Justice Rajendra Kumar-IV dissolved the marriage of a couple on teh grounds of mental cruelty and held, “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 High Court bench was hearing an appeal filed by the husband against a family court order which had dismissed his divorce petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act.
In his petition, he stated that his wife’s behaviour changed drastically after marriage and she refused to cohabit with him. He added that they stayed together under one roof for some time, then she started living separately at her parents’ house.
As per husband, he went to convince the wife after six months of marriage to come to the matrimonial home to perform her marital obligations which she refused to. In 1994, the couple got mutually divorced through a village Panchayat decision where the husband paid permanent alimony of Rs 22,000 to the wife.
The husband sought a decree of divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty and desertion after his wife remarried. But she didn’t appear in court. Noting that there were no grounds of cruelty to grant a divorce, the family court proceeded with the case ex-parte and dismissed the husband’s plea.
The High Court bench held that the family court adopted a hyper-technical approach while dismissing the case.
“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 the obligation of marital liability. There has been a complete breakdown of their marriage,” the bench noted.
Thus the court set aside the family court’s order and granted the appellant-husband decree of divorce.
