|
- By Parinda News Bureau, March 22, 2006, 12:07 IST
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that frigidity, indifference towards wife and sexual abstinence constitute mental cruelty and could be valid grounds for divorce.
The general rule in all questions of cruelty is that an overview of matrimonial relations must be taken, the court observed.-"That rule is of special value when cruelty consists of not violent acts but of injurious reproaches, complains, accusations or taunts," the court explained.
"It may be mental such as indifference and frigidity towards wife, denial of company to her, hatred and abhorrence for wife or physical, like acts of violence and abstinence from sexual intercourse without reasonable cause," the two-judge bench said. The verdict came on a petition by a woman seeking divorce on grounds of mental and physical cruelty and insanity. Among the grounds, it was contended that non-consummation of marriage itself would constitute mental cruelty to a married woman.
The court said 'mental disorder' under section 13(l)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, as a ground of divorce, is only tenable where it is of such a kind and degree that the parties cannot reasonably be expected to live together. "Where the parties are young and the mental disorder is of such a type that sexual act and procreation of children is not possible, it may furnish a good ground for nullifying the marriage. To beget children from a wedlock is one of the principal aims of Hindu marriage, where sanskar of marriage is advised for progeny and offspring," justice AR Lashmanan, writing the judgement for the Bench, said.
The petitioner, who was married in 1993, had sought divorce a year after her wedding, alleging that her husband was suffering from schizophrenia and was incapable of performing his matrimonial obligations.
She had submitted that her marriage lasted only for five months and that from the first day itself her mother-in-law treated her cruelly, both mentally and physically, because of her husband's mental disorder.
The lower court and Delhi High Court had dismissed her petition, holding that her husband was not suffering from schizophrenia and that there was insufficient material on record to establish the cause of cruelty. The courts had held that the incidents of cruelty were not as grave so as to be included within the scope of concept of cruelty.
Setting aside the verdict of trial court and High Court, the Bench said, "The trial court failed to appreciate the uncontroverted evidence of the appellant (woman) who had proved the case on every count. It has been established beyond doubt by the doctors who had deposed as witnesses and brought original medical record of the respondent (husband) that he is suffering from a mental disorder." Holding that grant of divorce on the plea of mental insanity and mental disorder is different than cruelty, the Bench said, "The appellant (woman), in our view, has proved beyond doubt that the respondent (husband) suffered from mental disorder and that the appellant suffered cruelty by and at the behest of the husband".
| 