Punjab and Haryana HC upholds divorce of man citing mental cruelty by wife

The HC dismissed the wife’s plea against the family court’s decision citing the fallacy of the cases filed by her against her husband and in-laws and accounted it as mental cruelty.

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Chandigarh: The High court of Punjab and Haryana has upheld the family court’s decision to grant a divorce to a physically challenged man who claimed to have lost at least 21 kgs of weight mental cruelty by his wife, said a newspaper report.

The HC dismissed the wife’s plea against the family court’s decision citing the fallacy of the cases filed by her against her husband and in-laws and accounted as mental cruelty, said the report.

The division bench comprising of Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Archana Puri reportedly dismissed the woman’s plea to quash the decision of the family court granting the divorce dated August 27, 2019.

Woman accused her husband and in-laws of harassment

The man filed a case citing the short-temper of the wife who never tried to adjust herself in his family, said the TOI report.

According to him, she used to pick up quarrels over petty matters due to which he felt humiliated in front of his parents and relatives, but kept silent, hoping that good sense would prevail upon the respondent in the near future, but her behaviour never changed.

The physically challenged man with 50% of hearing loss claimed that due to his wife's cruel behavior his weight fell to 53 kgs from 74.

On the other hand, the woman from Hisar denied all the allegations and claimed that she always performed her marital obligations with love and respect.

She even alleged that after six months of marriage, her husband along with his family members started harassing her for dowry.

As per the report, the HC found that the woman had left her husband in 2016 and had also left her daughter in the matrimonial house and never tried to meet her.

It also came to the fore that the husband’s family had never demanded any dowry and had even paid for the woman’s higher studies after the marriage.

The high court also found that false complaints were also filed by the woman against her husband and his family members.

Dismissing the woman’s plea, HC reportedly observed, “Keeping in view that the appellant was an educated woman, she was aware of the effects of criminal complaints, which she had made against her husband and his family members in 2013 and 2019... Moreover, he was looking after his three-year-old daughter alone after his wife had left the matrimonial home in the year 2016. All this amounted to mental cruelty.”