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Ravinder Kaur v. Manjit Singh (Dead) Thr. Lrs.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 930Decided 21 Aug 2019
Civil Appeal No. 2021 of 2010
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

After 25 years of marriage and three grown children, a husband sought divorce from his wife on the ground of mental cruelty, alleging she had falsely accused him of an illicit relationship with a family friend's wife and had taken police/legal action against him over a disputed house. The wife denied the allegations, countering that the husband himself had accused her of an affair with a driver who, the trial court found, did not actually exist, and that her police complaint and lawsuit were legitimate steps to protect her rights in the property dispute. The trial court dismissed the husband's divorce petition, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court reversed that decision and dissolved the marriage, reasoning that the marriage was irretrievably broken down; the husband died during the appeal, and his legal heirs continued the case.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had wrongly proceeded on the preconceived notion that the marriage was irretrievably broken down, a ground that is not available under the Hindu Marriage Act, and had effectively treated the husband's unproven allegations against the wife as established facts. The Court found that the wife's police complaint and civil suit were legitimate legal measures to protect her property rights rather than conduct amounting to cruelty, relying on its earlier ruling in Ramchander vs. Ananta that lawful legal recourse used as a shield is not cruelty. Weighing the evidence afresh, the Court agreed with the trial court that the alleged incidents amounted, at most, to misunderstandings between a long-married couple and did not meet the threshold of mental cruelty required to dissolve the marriage, especially since the husband had made allegations against the wife involving a fictitious person.

Lesson Learnt

"Irretrievable breakdown of marriage" is not by itself a legal ground for divorce in India, and taking lawful steps such as filing a police complaint or civil suit to protect one's own rights cannot, without more, be treated as mental cruelty against the other spouse.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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