Wife's pregnancy can't erase acts of cruelty, says Delhi High Court; husband granted divorce

New Delhi: Pregnancy or temporary reconciliation cannot erase the previous acts of cruelty and abusive conduct of the wife towards her husband, the Delhi High Court has said while granting a divorce decree to a man.

The high court said cruelty must be judged from the entirety of the circumstances and not from isolated episodes of reconciliation.

A bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Renu Bhatnagar made the observations while setting aside a family court's judgment by which it had dismissed the man's petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of cruelty meted out to him by his wife.

"The family court also placed reliance on the respondent’s (wife) miscarriage in early 2019 to infer harmonious relations between the parties. Such an inference is legally untenable," the bench said in its November 20 judgment.

"The occurrence of pregnancy or temporary reconciliation cannot erase antecedent acts of cruelty, particularly when the record demonstrates that the respondent’s abusive conduct, threats, and denial of cohabitation persisted thereafter," it said.

The estranged couple got married in March 2016, and owing to marital discord, the man filed a divorce petition in the court in 2021, claiming that he was subjected to cruelty.

The woman, on the other hand, alleged that she was subjected to dowry-related harassment by her husband and in-laws and was ousted from the matrimonial home.

The family court rejected the divorce plea on the grounds that the husband had failed to prove cruelty and did not sufficiently rebut the dowry harassment allegations, and that the wife's miscarriage in early 2019 showed that the couple were in a harmonious relationship.

The high court, however, allowed the man's appeal against the family court's decision and said it was satisfied that the marriage between the parties had irretrievably broken down, and that the husband had successfully established the ground of cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act.

It said the wife's repeated humiliation and insults directed at the husband and his mother, persistent threats of self-harm, refusal to cohabit and desertion without reasonable cause, satisfied the test of mental cruelty.

"Before parting, this court deems it appropriate to observe that matrimonial litigation often leaves behind deep emotional scars. The dissolution of marriage is not a triumph of one over the other, but a legal recognition that the relationship has reached a point of no return.

"Both parties are urged to maintain civility in all future interactions, particularly in the event of any pending or future proceedings concerning maintenance or other ancillary reliefs," the bench said.