Wife Visiting Husband's Office And Abusing Him Is Cruelty: High Court

The Chhattisgarh High Court has observed that the act of a wife visiting the office of her husband and using abusive language would amount to cruelty as it upheld a Raipur family court's ruling granting divorce to a man.

A division bench of Justices Goutam Bhaduri and Radhakishan Agrawal, while delivering judgement on an appeal filed by the woman challenging the family court's order, also said a complaint by the wife against her husband, a government official, to a minister seeking his transfer on the ground of illicit relation with a female colleague without any substance, too, would amount to cruelty.

The High Court delivered the judgement on August 18.

The 32-year-old man, a resident of the Dhamtari district, had married the woman, a widow (34) and Raipur resident, in 2010. Later, the man filed a plea in the Raipur family court seeking divorce citing various grounds, one of them being that she would abuse and prevent him from meeting his parents and other family members.

In December 2019, the family court, after evaluating facts and evidence on record, allowed the application of the husband, thereby granting him a decree of divorce. Subsequently, the woman challenged the decision in the HC.

During the High Court hearing, advocate Shishir Shrivastava, who appeared for the woman, submitted that the family court failed to appreciate the fact that the wife was treated with cruelty by her husband.

He submitted that the wife's statements would show the husband tried to create false evidence to get the divorce and sought the High Court's interference in the decision of the lower court.

Advocate C Jayant K Rao, appearing for the man, contended that separate reports made over a different point of time in 2017 before the police would show the state of affairs between the two parties (husband and wife).

The man not only faced character assassination with the allegation of an extramarital affair, but the wife went to the extent of going to the office of the husband to create a scene and also sent letters to the Chief Minister seeking his transfer, Mr Rao submitted.

The High Court, in its order, said, "The overall assessment of the evidence, therefore, would show that the appellant/wife used to abuse the husband on trivial issues of which the husband made complaint many times, which is proved by statements of witnesses, however, the same being non-cognizable, the police did not take cognizance of it. The fact remains that the husband made a complaint to the police about the rash and abusive behaviour coupled with the fact that the complaint was made that he was physically abused."

Statements of the man and the sister of his wife would show the woman has made a void allegation of the illicit relationship of the husband with a lady outside the marriage. Even a complaint was made by the wife to the Chief Minister to transfer the husband from a particular posting in the office over allegation of illicit relations, the division bench noted.

It is also established that the wife used to visit the office of the husband and create scenes with abusive language, the bench said.

"In such a situation when a wife goes to the office premises of the husband, abuses him and accuses him of certain relation, naturally it would result into diminishing the image of the husband before the colleagues and the office stature will certainly go down. Even it is stated that the wife used to abuse the in-laws and stopped the husband from meeting his parents, which would also amount to cruelty," the High Court said.

The bench upheld the family court's order in the divorce matter.

"The judgment and decree passed by the family court do not require any interference and we affirm the finding arrived at by the family court", it added.

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