The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has ruled that wife frequently visiting her maternal home without intimating husband amounted to cruelty and could be a ground for divorce. While quashing a family court verdict in 2017, the high court dissolved the marriage of a Nagpur-based couple, over two decades after they were married.

Even if we assume wife was mentally unstable and hence leaving the matrimonial home, then also it would be difficult for husband to live in her company,” a division bench of Justice Vasanti Naik and Justice Vinay Deshpande held before allowing the man’s plea for separation.

The couple entered into wedlock on March 7, 1994, and had a son and daughter. However, the wife’s behaviour was eccentric and she used to become furious over petty issues. She used to ill-treat her mother-in-law. Many times, she used to leave home without intimating husband or other family members. The husband had to lodge missing reports at police station to trace her. She stayed away for a year in 2005-06 and returned only after his mother expired.

Fed up with harassment, the man knocked Nagpur Family Court’s doors seeking divorce on the basis of cruelty butit was rejected on August 31, 2010.
The man then approached high court. The judges said except for bare denial, there is nothing that shows that the husband’s case was false.
“There is material on record to show husband had taken prompt action to search for his wife. If she hadn’t left without informing him and if the reports were untrue, she should have protested against him for filing false reports,” they added.

The judges added that family court should have granted divorce to husband after disbelieving wife’s contention that she was mentally unstable at relevant time. “The family court ought to have held that wife treated husband with cruelty and that he was entitled to a decree of divorce,” the court ruled.