While allowing a woman’s petition and granting divorce, the Kerala High Court has held that merely because the wife continued with the matrimony in spite of the alleged unceasing abuse and harassment, one can never countenance the view that she condoned it.

The appellant wife approached the High Court, challenging the findings of the Family Court dismissing her plea for divorce from the respondent husband.

The Division Bench of Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice M.B. Snehalatha asserted, “Merely because the appellant continued with the matrimony in spite of the alleged unceasing abuse and harassment - as she puts it, one can never countenance the view that she has condoned it, because cruelty can never be condoned.”

Advocate Rajesh Sivaramankutty represented the Petitioner, while Advocate P. Yadhu Kumar represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The facts as culminated from the pleadings of the appellant were that the marriage was solemnized in 2011 and the parties lived as husband and wife for about a month and a half in the matrimonial home. They left for their respective places of work abroad, namely Saudi Arabia and Sharjah. The wife delivered a baby and was allegedly forced to leave her work. Since they could not survive without proper employment, she returned to Saudi Arabia to look for a better job, which she finally obtained in Oman.

It was the wife’s case that the respondent joined her in Oman, but throughout this period, she was being continuously attacked – both verbally and physically thus traumatised by the respondent, forcing her to return to Kerala. She ultimately left the matrimonial home in 2019. It was in such circumstances that she filed the application for divorce.

Reasoning

The Bench was of the view that the pleadings and depositions of the appellant suggested that there was persistent and continuous harassment across a period of time, and she, as part of it, mentioned certain specific instances. “From any manner of reading it, one cannot confine the experience of the appellant solely to those two or three instances; but has to be alive to the fact that her specific case is that she was constantly abused and ill-treated. Of course, this is subject to proof”, it said.

Taking note of the fact that the Family Court entered a finding that the insinuation of the respondent, that the appellant was acting as per the dictates of her mother stood proved, the Bench stated, “We cannot fathom how such a drastic observation or opinion could have been made or entered into by the learned Family Court; and it is rather distressing that while doing so, the learned Court has discarded and disregarded the factum of the appellant being an independent woman, highly qualified and working as a specialized nurse in a foreign country. To even suggest that a person of that nature would simply be swayed by what her mother tells her, particularly in matters relating to her matrimony, would be to oversimplify human behavior, with the fold of unfortunate notions of patriarchal bias.”

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench noted that the appellant had endured for the first few years and then initiated action for her deliverance in the year 2019. “In a case where there is hardly any evidence except the testimony of the parties, the same ought have to been analysed and evaluated in the background of normal human behaviour, without any generationalisation or stereotyping; but unfortunately, the learned Family Court has, perhaps unwittingly, fallen to the trap of both these”, it added.

As per the Bench, the appellant had apodictically established that she was trapped in a loveless relationship, subjected to cruelty and mental torture. This was exacerbated by the admitted fact that the parties had been living separately since November 28, 2019.

The Bench thus allowed the Appeal with costs and decreed the Petition granting divorce to the appellant wife from the respondent husband, finding that the latter had treated the former with cruelty, within the ambit of Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act.

Cause Title: A v. B (Neutral Citation: 2025:KER:72515)

Appearance

Petitioner: Advocates Rajesh Sivaramankutty, K.V.Antony, Vijina K., Arul Muralidharan

Respondent: Advocates P. Yadhu Kumar, P.Babu Kumar, Swetha K.S.

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