SATISH KUMAR Vs. SMT. SUMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petition filed by the husband seeking for divorce against his wife on the ground of cruelty and desertion was dismissed. Aggrieved by the decision, the husband has preferred the appeal. The parties were married as per Shashtra on 10.05.1996 and there had been a male child born out of wedlock. The allegation made against the wife was that she was quarrelsome and she abused the Petitioner by vile epithets. She was alleged to have called him ganwar gadha. Respondent was alleged to have lodged false complaints against the Petitioner at police Station Rajindra Park, Gurgaon and it had resulted in great humiliation and insult to him. The wife left the husband in November, 1998 at the time of marriage of the son of her Mausi and at that time she had taken all her gold, silver and other jewellery, vessels and costly clothes given at the time of marriage. The husband would also state that the Respondent had treated the Petitioner's parents with cruelty and had physically assaulted them on some occasions. Even the persons, who were closely associated with the Petitioner and who wanted to intercede between the parties to secure a harmonious living between them were abused and treated with gross disrespect.

(2.) The Respondent would deny all the allegations made against her and particularly of the cruel attributes of abusive and physical assaults on the husband and his parents. She would state that the husband has illicit intimacy with his sister-in-law (bhabhi) and it was only at her instance that the husband was trying to get rid of her. She would further contend that the husband and his parents had at all times been making demands for dowry and the complaints to the police have been to vindiate her stand about the cruel acts meted out to her and illegal demands of dowry. It is contended that the criminal case has been taken on record by the criminal court and the case is still pending. Even apart from the allegations and counter allegations relating to the cruel acts which each one of them was attributing to the other, the trial Court considered the act of illicit intimacy that the husband was said to have had with his sister-in-law and made reference to the wife's allegations that she came to know about her husband's illicit relations after the birth of the child. One day in the night when she was sleeping, she found her husband missing from bed and found him in the room of his sister-in-law in a compromising position. She was also reported to have informed her parents-in-law regarding such illicit relations and had also told the same to her parents. The trial Court held that the several allegations made by the husband against the wife were not worthy of acceptance. The Court also found some material contradictions in the statement of witnesses produced by the Petitioner. All those aspects relating to the verbal abuse and physical assaults stand on merely oral assertions and it will be difficult for me to unravel the truth from the evidence especially when the trial Court had chosen to discard them. I will not, therefore, reappraise the same.

(3.) The only forcible contention that the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the Appellant would submit is, more than any other cruel act attributed to the wife which the trial Court did not find as sufficient, the single act of infidelity attributed to the husband of his alleged illicit relations with sister-in-law, was sufficient to find that the wife was guilty of mental cruelty. It was grossly untrue and even the trial Court did not find the statement to be either established or correct. The same allegation of illicit intimacy was also persisted during the time of trial. The Court merely decided to brush it aside as of no consequence by a reasoning that the society in which the parties were living, their education and their mental level, the allegations of illicit relations levelled by a wife against her husband were not of much effect on the behaviour of the party. This line of reasoning, according to me, is not appropriate for a matrimonial infidelity and harmonious living cannot happen side by side. One annihilates the other. If the Court would find that the allegation of the wife was not true, it could not have been put under carpet to say that such allegations are bound to exist and that cannot be treated as cruel acts. The learned Counsel appearing for the Appellant would refer to the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, particularly in Vijaykumar Ramchandra Bhate v. Neela Vijaykumar Bhate, 2003 6 SCC 334 in support of his case that allegation against a wife of unchastity and indecent familiarity with other person and extra marital relationship constituted cruelty and "judged in the Indian conditions, such false allegations amount to worst form of insult, a grave assault on character, reputation and her status." The Hon'ble Supreme Court was observing that even if such allegations were withdrawn by seeking for amendment of the petition and even if such amendment had also been allowed that would be of no consequence. A Division Bench viewed an allegation of unchastity and character assassination as constituting very serious cruelty in Dharam Pal v. Smt. Pushpa Devi, 2005 4 RCR(Civ) 717. A similar view was also held in Jasbir Kaur v. Kuljit Singh, 2008 151 PunLR 192 that averments, accusations and character assassination attributed to a party in the written statement and during the examination also would constitute cruelty.