Delhi High Court has said that a marriage rests on mutual trust, respect, and companionship, and constant rejection by wife is a source of great mental agony for the husband. The court said so while upholding the divorce granted to a couple that had been living separately since 2011 with no possibility of reconciliation.
The High Court dismissed an appeal filed by the wife against a family court order granting divorce earlier this year, saying the “marriage for the parties was not a bed of roses” and the appellant’s conduct “caused immense mental suffering, pain and cruelty” to her spouse, entitling him to divorce.
The husband said that besides implicating him and his family in an unsuccessful criminal case for cruelty, the wife refused to fast on ‘Karwa Chauth’ as she did not recognise him as her husband because she loved someone else. The husband also said she did not respect him or his family members and even threatened to commit suicide.
“The respondent in his testimony had deposed that she had even refused to keep the fast of Karwa Chauth by asserting that she considered ‘R’ as her husband, and she had been forced into marriage with the respondent by her parents against her wishes. Such disconnect and constant rejection of any relationship or non-acknowledgment of the respondent as a husband is again a source of great mental agony for a husband,” the court said.
“A relationship of marriage rests on mutual trust, respect and companionship and the acts of the appellant clearly establish and prove that these elements were totally missing from their marriage, essentially on account of the conduct of the appellant (wife),” the court added.
