Recently, the Bombay High Court has said in one of its judgements that defaming husband and calling him a womaniser and alcoholic without substantiating the allegations amount to cruelty. The court upheld a family court order dissolving the marriage of a Pune-based couple.

A bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh in its order passed on October 12 dismissed an appeal filed by a 50-year-old woman, challenging a November 2005 decree passed by a family court in Pune dissolving her marriage to a retired Army official.

The husband had earlier approached the Pune family court with an application seeking divorce on grounds of mental agony inflicted by the woman. It was against that order passed in 2005 that the wife had approached the high court.

The man passed away during the pending hearing of the appeal following which the high court directed for his legal heir to be added as a respondent.

The woman in her appeal claimed her husband was a womaniser and alcoholic and due to which she was deprived of her conjugal rights.

The high court in its order noted that apart from her own statement, the woman has not produced any evidence to substantiate her allegations.

The court referred to the husband’s deposition before the family court wherein he had claimed that the petitioner separated him from his children and grandchildren.

“It is a settled position in law that ‘cruelty’ can broadly be defined as a conduct that inflicts upon the other party such mental pain and suffering as would make it not possible for that party to live with the other,” the high court said.

The bench further noted that the petitioner’s husband was an ex-Army man who retired as a Major, belonged to the upper strata of society and had a standing in the society.

“The conduct of the petitioner in making unwarranted, false and baseless allegations pertaining to the respondent’s character and labelling him as an alcoholic and womaniser has resulted in shredding his reputation in the society,” the high court said.

“Considering the above, we find that the conduct of the petitioner constitutes cruelty within the meaning of Section 13 (1) (i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act,” the court said, adding it was a fit case for grant of divorce.