Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld a divorce granted to a husband, ruling that continuous verbal abuse and insulting words by the wife amounted to cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act.
The case involved a wife who challenged a family court order that had granted divorce to her husband under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Act, which allows for divorce on the grounds of cruelty.
A bench of Justices Sanjeev Sachdeva and Vikas Mahajan dismissed the wife’s appeal and said that repeated use of insulting and humiliating words by the wife towards the husband and his family clearly caused mental pain and suffering, which is considered cruelty.
The court stated:
“No person can be expected to live with constant abuse being hurled at them. Every individual has the right to live with dignity and self-respect.”
The wife argued that her husband had an extra-marital affair, but the court noted that this claim was not supported by strong evidence.
In the original divorce petition, the husband provided specific examples of the derogatory language used by the wife and her father. The court said that such language, used repeatedly during quarrels, was enough to cause mental agony.
The wife also claimed that no specific dates or times of the incidents were mentioned in the divorce case. However, the court held that in such matters, it is the ongoing pattern of cruelty that matters more than exact dates.
The bench concluded that the wife’s behaviour had a serious emotional impact on the husband over time and constituted mental cruelty. As a result, the court confirmed the divorce and dismissed the wife’s appeal.
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