Madhya Pradesh High Court: Wife's Refusal of Physical Relationship Can Be Termed Cruelty for Divorce

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has ruled that a wife's refusal to engage in a physical relationship with her husband constitutes cruelty towards him. This observation was made by a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Amar Nath (Kesharwani) while upholding a family court's decision to grant the husband's divorce application under Section 13-1 (i-a) & (i-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

In January 2018, the husband filed a divorce petition before the Principal Judge of the Family Court in Satna, citing cruelty and desertion by his wife as the grounds for the dissolution of the marriage.

According to a report of Live Law, it was his case that his marriage was solemnised with the appellant-wife on May 26, 2013, as per Hindu customs and rites, but on the first night itself, the appellant-wife refused to establish physical relations with him and also told that she did not like him and she got married under the pressure of her parents.

On May 29, 2013, the wife's brothers arrived at the husband's house and took her away, allegedly to appear for her final exams scheduled for the next day. When the husband's family went to the wife's house the following day to bring her back to her matrimonial home, her parents refused to let her return. Since then, the wife has not come back to her matrimonial home.

Conversely, the appellant wife claimed that her marital relationship with her husband (the respondent) was intact until May 28, 2013. She alleged that after this date, her husband and his family members began harassing her by demanding Rs. 1,50,000 and an Alto car as dowry.

She claimed that her exams continued until June 2013, preventing her from returning to her matrimonial home with her husband and his father. This angered her in-laws, who resumed their dowry demands. After that, her husband never came to take her back.