Cruelty in Marriage| Patna High Court |Alok Bharti v. Jyoti Raj (2019)

In this case, the husband and wife were married in 2012. Domestic issues surfaced when the wife refused to reside in the husband’s matrimonial home. The situation escalated in 2016 when the wife initiated legal proceedings by filing a police case against her husband, his in-laws, and others, accusing them of matrimonial torture and cruelty. In response, the husband filed a petition before the Family Court under Sections 13(1)(i-a) and 13(1)(i-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act. Although the Family Court dismissed his petition, an appeal was subsequently filed and allowed by the Patna High Court.

The Patna High Court made several significant observations:

• The court held that false allegations, specifically, claiming that a spouse engaged in illicit relations with persons outside the marriage, amount to mental cruelty.

  It was observed that the deliberate use of false legal proceedings to harass the other party constitutes “social torture”, which the courts deem equivalent to mental cruelty.

• Emphasising the sanctity of individual dignity and privacy, the court noted that every individual is entitled to a life free from such degrading and injurious conduct. Privacy, in this context, is fundamental and encompasses the right to preserve personal intimacies and the sanctity of family life.