The Calcutta High Court has held that a wife imposing her friends and family on her husband by having them put up at his residence without his willingness would amount to cruelty. 

A division bench of Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Uday Kumar held: The mother of the respondent (wife) would not have lived at the Kolaghat residence of the appellant (husband) if he extorted her pension or the respondent’s earned money.

The appellant-husband preferred the present appeal against a judgment and decree dismissing his suit for divorce, which was instituted on the ground of cruelty.

The parties married under the Special Marriage Act in 2005 at Nabadwip in their matrimonial home and thereafter shifted to Kolaghat at Mecheda, where the husband has quarters by dint of his service.

In 2008, the appellant-husband instituted the divorce suit and later the wife sent a complaint against the husband and his family by registered post to the Nabadwip Police Station.

A criminal proceeding was accordingly initiated under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code.

Counsel for the appellant-husband submits that throughout the period of the parties’ stay together, one Mousumi Paul, a friend of the wife, was imposed on him and used to reside for a substantial period with the husband and wife. The mother of the respondent-wife also used to stay with the spouses.

It is contended that the wife, instead of spending time with the husband, used to devote most of her family time to Mousumi Paul, which itself constitutes an act of cruelty.

Counsel for the appellant further contends that during the period of living together, the respondent-wife did not lodge any complaint before any forum but only after receiving the summons of the suit, lodged a false complaint against the appellant and his family, thereby harassing and maligning them without any basis. It was stated that the wife was not interested in a conjugal relationship and/or in having a child of the marriage. All of these, according to the husband, cumulatively comprise of cruelty, furnishing sufficient ground for divorce. The desertion of the husband by the wife without reasonable excuse and her refusal to return and resume conjugal life also constitutes cruelty, it is contended.

 Counsel for the respondent argued that there is no pleading in the plaint by the appellant-husband about any cruelty caused by false complaint lodged by the wife. Thus, the evidence on such score cannot be looked into. As an immediate prelude to the lodging of the complaint on October 27, 2008, the wife faced atrocities from her matrimonial family when she went to Nabadwip to take back her goods and stay there. 

It is submitted that the appellant-husband never made any endeavour to come and live with the wife at her official residence in Narkeldanga. It is contended that the wife had to travel daily from far-off Kolaghat to her workplace in Sealdah before she got her official quarters at Narkeldanga. It was far more convenient for the wife to travel between Narkeldanga and Sealdah than from Kolaghat and as such, she shifted to Narkeldanga.

 It is submitted that there is nothing on record to show that the husband was forcibly turned out by the wife from her Narkeldanga residence. Accordingly, it is submitted that the appellant-husband having failed to prove his case of cruelty, the divorce suit was rightly dismissed by the Trial Judge. Upon adjudicating the case, the bench expressed various objections on the order passed by the trial judge.

 It was seen that the trial judge had substituted his own views on marriage and morality on the case instead of considering the coouple’s case as a unique one.

 Such findings are not based on any material evidence and may be the Judge’s own convictions, but, as discussed above, the Supreme Court has been categorically holding that ideal couples would not come to the matrimonial court; it is the situation of the particular man and woman before the court which is to be considered and not Utopian notions of a perfect matrimonial life or vague “ideals” of Society, the Court said.

 Accordingly, it allowed the appeal and granted the decree of divorce.

Case title: Mr. Dhiraj Guin vs Mrs Tanushre Majumder