Wife Passing Disparaging Comments On About Husband's Physical Infirmity Amounts To Mental Cruelty For Granting Divorce: Orissa High Court

The Orissa High Court has held that making aspersions to husband towards his physical infirmity and passing disparaging comments on it amounts to mental cruelty for granting divorce.

The Court was considering an Appeal against an order of the Family Court wherein the decree of divorce was granted at the behest of the Husband dissolving the marriage between the parties without any grant of permanent alimony.

The division bench of Justice Bibhu Prasad Routray and Justice Chittaranjan Dash observed, ".....Here it is a case where the Wife made aspersions to Husband towards his physical infirmity and passed comments regarding the same. This definitely in our opinion amounts to mental cruelty leading to draw an inference against the Wife that she treated her Husband with cruelty owing to his physical deformity. Thus we are inclined with the finding of the learned Judge, Family Court, Puri that the Wife has treated her Husband with mental cruelty....."

The Appellant was represented by Advocate M.B. Das while the Respondent was represented by Advocate H. Mohapatra.

Facts of the Case

The Appellant submitted that the ground of cruelty, based on which, the Family Court granted decree of divorce is not established on record. It was further submitted that, it was the Husband, who compelled the Wife to leave the matrimonial companion and till date the Wife is staying separately in her parent’s house since March 25, 2018.

It was alleged on the part of the Husband that, the Wife was always passing comments towards physical infirmity of the Husband, for which unpleasant situations arose between the parties. She left the matrimonial home in 2016 and came back again in 2017 after negotiation, but then also continued to aspersing the Husband for his physical infirmity which resulted serious dispute between the parties and finally in 2018 she voluntarily left the matrimonial house. Thereafter she also lodged a criminal case alleging the offences under Section 498-A, I.P.C. and other offences against the Husband and in-law members. The husband then filed Petition for dissolution of the marriage in 2019.

Reasoning By Court

The Court at the outset noted that as borne out of the evidence, the Wife was passing comments to her physically handicapped Husband calling him “Kempa, Nikhatu, etc.”

It referred to Supreme Court's ruling in V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat and Samar Ghosh vs. Jaya Ghosh to reiterate that cruelty includes mental cruelty and the Wife making such statements against the Husband towards his physical infirmity definitely was causing mental pain.

"Such behaviour by the Wife towards the Husband discloses her thought and respect to the Husband. A person is expected to give respect to another person in general and where it comes to relationship of Husband and Wife, it is expected that the Wife should support the Husband despite his physical infirmity, if any..........Thus we are inclined with the finding of the learned Judge, Family Court, Puri that the Wife has treated her Husband with mental cruelty. On such ground, we are satisfied that the requirement in terms of Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act is attracted to grant the decree of divorce. We thus confirm the impugned judgment granting the decree of divorce between the parties dissolving their marriage," the Court observed.

The Appeal was accordingly disposed of.

Cause Title: Priyanka Nayak vs. Pranaya Pradhan

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