NEW DELHI: A husband living with another woman, with no possibility of reunion with his wife after a long separation, cannot be disentitled from divorce on account of proven cruelty by his wife, the Delhi High Court said.
The observation by a bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna came while dealing with a case of a couple who had been living separately since 2005 with no possibility of re-union, and the prolonged differences and criminal complaints by the wife made the husband’s life bereft of peace and conjugal relationship.
“Such prolonged differences and criminal complaints made the life of respondent-husband bereft of peace and conjugal relationship which is the bedrock of any matrimonial relationship,” the order read. The woman has approached the High Court with an appeal against a family court order granting divorce to the husband claiming the allegations of cruelty against her were incorrect. She argued that the husband married another woman at the time when the divorce petition was pending before the family court.
The high court noted that neither any specific details nor proof whatsoever of the alleged second marriage have been tendered on record or given in the wife’s complaint. “Even if it is accepted that the respondent-husband has started living with another woman and has two sons during the pendency of the divorce petition, that in itself, cannot be termed as cruelty in the peculiar circumstances of this case when the parties have not been co-habiting since 2005,” the high court observed.
The HC further said, “..after such long years of separation with no possibility of re-union, the respondent husband may have found his peace and comfort by living with another woman, but, that is a subsequent event during the pendency of the Divorce Petition and cannot disentitle the husband from divorce on the proven grounds of cruelty.” The bench also averred that the wife has not been able to prove any other act of cruelty by the respondent-husband disentitling the respondent-husband from taking divorce.
