The Allahabad High Court dissolved a marriage last week due to cruelty after concluding that denying a spouse sexual intercourse without justification creates mental distress for the affected party. The ruling by Justices Suneet Kumar and Rajendra Kumar-IV came in response to an appeal by the husband contesting a family court’s decision to dismiss his divorce petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. The husband argued that his wife’s behavior and conduct had changed after they married in May 1979, leading her to refuse to live with him.
The couple lived under the same roof for a time, but his spouse chose to live separately at her parents’ house. Despite his efforts to persuade her to return, the woman refused.A panchayat in their village facilitated a divorce agreement in 1994, in which the husband paid alimony of INR 22,000 to his wife. When the husband subsequently attempted to obtain a decree of divorce based on mental cruelty, long-term desertion, and the previous agreement, his wife failed to appear in court, prompting the case to proceed ex-parte. The family court dismissed the petition after determining that the husband’s evidence was insufficient, and established that no evidence suggested that his wife had regressed to a second marriage. Upon review, the High Court found that the family court’s decision relied on technicalities and failed to consider the evidence presented by the husband. Thus, the Allahabad High Court granted the husband’s appeal, dissolved the marriage, and quashed the family court’s decision.