Anger No Excuse For Wife To Level Baseless Allegations Of Infidelity Against Husband: Madhya Pradesh High Court Grants Divorce

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that anger can be no excuse for a Wife to make baseless allegations against the Husband of moral turpitude, and that the same amounts to cruelty in marriage.

The Court was considering an Appeal filed by the Husband, aggrieved by the judgement whereby his Divorce Petition was dismissed and a lesser relief of a decree of judicial separation was allowed.

The Division Bench of Justice Vishal Dhagat and Justice Anuradha Shukla held, "......it is established that respondent/wife was making very serious allegations about the illicit relationship of appellant/husband and she has hopelessly failed in establishing any grain of truth in those allegations. Making baseless and false allegations of the nature of moral turpitude not only cause mental agony to the other party of marriage but it brings the marital relationship to its doom. We accede that if allegations were true then nothing should have been spared by wife to establish what was being claimed by her repeatedly or we may say that the burden to prove these grave allegations was heavily on her. As nothing worth credence has been proved by her, we find no exaggeration in the compliant of husband that he has suffered great agony on account of these allegations and has therefore been subjected to cruelty."

The Appellant was represented by Advocate Ajay Kumar Ojha, while the Respondent was represented by Advocate Vaibhav Tiwari.

Facts of the Case

The Parties married in 2002 and a daughter was born to them in the year 2007. Admittedly, they are living separately since 2019 after they shifted from Bengaluru to Bhopal in 2018. It was also admitted that Husband was working in a Multi National Company and the properties acquired during the period of marriage were registered in the joint name of the parties. The Husband took a trip to Manila, Philippines in the year 2019 and during her husband's visit to Manila the wife came to Bhopal along with daughter and then went to Chennai. The Wife filed Petitions under Section 125 Cr.P.C., Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act and Section 12 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

It was stated that since the marriage, the parents of the Wife had too much interference in the married life of the parties. To help the Wife in her studies, the Husband got her admission in a coaching institute at Bhopal where his parents were residing but during her stay at Bhopal she resided for some time in a place not known to the Husband. He also ensured her treatment for conceiving the child and after the birth of child, when mother of the Husband visited them at Bengaluru, the behaviour of wife towards her was very repulsive and insulting. The Wife was not very caring even for the child and this resulted in deterioration of child's health. The Husband had to visit foreign countries and the Wife was completely negligent towards her household and motherhood commitments.

She used to spend huge money on living a lavish life as she was enjoying financial freedom through credit card facilities provided by Husband and became outrageous when questioned about it. The emotions and bonding between the parties started dying down and the Wife grew more and more aggressive and insulting towards Husband and his relatives. She even withdrew jewellery items worth ₹50,00,000/- from the joint locker without informing the Husband. She started casting doubts about his moral character and also about his ability to earn money and sustain the family. When the Husband was still in Manila, the Wife went to Chennai along with daughter to give a new start to her life but informed nothing about it to the Husband. She also obtained the T.C. of her daughter from the Bhopal School and is living separately since then. She also got a false report registered in Mahila Thana, Chennai, but did not arrive for counselling session.

On the other hand, the Wife claimed that she was always keen to resume the marital ties and only with that object she had filed a Petition under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act and made several attempts through visiting the matrimonial house but she was denied entry the Husband.

Reasoning By Court

The Court at the outset pointed out that the Trial Court, though, made an observation that both the parties dealt cruelly against each other, but in para-26 it decided not to give any conclusive finding on the issue of cruelty committed by the Husband and restricted its finding only to the fact that the Wife was cruel to the Husband.

"The ground raised about cruelty had multiple facets: insulting and intimidating behaviour of wife towards husband and his mother, neglect of house hold tasks, misusing the financial liberty, living a luxurious life and spending most of the time in kitty parties and also casting aspersions on the moral character of appellant/husband by claiming his physical and illicit relationship with other women. From the analysis of oral testimony, we are sure that it is difficult to arrive on any etching finding that behaviour of wife towards husband and his mother was un-becoming and offensive, or had a habit of squandering money to the extent of constituting cruelty for the husband. This view is based upon the reason that whatever has been stated by appellant/husband on oath in said context, has been correspondingly denied by wife on oath in her testimony and no other witness has been examined by either parties to seek corroboration to their respective statements on this issue", the Court observed.

It concluded that cruelty through misbehaviour or any insulting attitude, or by squandering the money or misusing the financial access to the husband’s bank account has not been proved.

With respect to the other aspect of cruelty related to aspersions cast about the immoral character of the Husband, the Court found that the Wife was making very serious allegations about the illicit relationship of the Husband.

Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Chanderkala Trivedi (Smt.) Vs. Dr. S.P. Trivedi, (1993) and V. Bhagat Vs. D. Bhagat (Smt.), (1994), the Court ruled, "We are aware that relationship between the parties had gone so bitter that neither of them was having any empathy for the other, but even this kind of relationship cannot be an excuse to make false allegations regarding the moral character of the other party. Thus, on this ground of cruelty, husband deserves a decree of divorce and there is no reasoned justification in the impugned judgment for not allowing the decree of divorcee despite holding that husband was being subjected to cruelty."

The Appeal was accordingly allowed and the marriage was dissolved on the ground of cruelty.

Cause No.: First Appeal No. 930 of 2024 (2025:MPHC-JBP:49857)

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