The Calcutta High Court has ruled that a wife forcing her husband to accommodate her friends and relatives at his home against his wishes amounts to cruelty. While hearing a divorce case from Kolaghat in Bengal, the division bench, comprising Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Uday Kumar observed that the imposition of the wife’s friends and family on the husband at his home for a long period can amount to cruelty.
Legal news website Live Law stated: “The imposition of friend and family of the respondent [wife] on the husband at his quarter against his will, sometimes even when the respondent-wife herself was not there, over a continuous period of time, can definitely be constituted as cruelty since it might very well have made life impossible for the appellant [husband], which would come within the broader purview of cruelty, it held.”
The case stemmed from the husband’s challenge to an earlier judgment that dismissed his divorce petition filed on the grounds of cruelty. The couple had married under the Special Marriage Act in 2005 in Nabadwip, Bengal. They later moved to Kolaghat, where the husband had his official accommodation due to his employment.
In 2008, the husband sought a divorce on the grounds that the wife’s friend and mother had overstayed their welcome and imposed themselves upon him. He also said that his wife devoted all her time to her mother. He further alleged that she was neither interested in conjugal relations nor in having a child.
Shortly afterwards, the wife lodged a complaint against him and his family, holding him accountable for criminal offences under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. This, the husband said, was a false complaint as it was filed only after he filed for a divorce first.
The court said a wife’s mother would not have resided at the appellant-husband’s quarters in Kolaghat if he had been exploiting her pension or the respondent’s earnings. The court held that forcing the husband to host the wife’s acquaintances over an extended period, sometimes even in her absence, constituted cruelty, as it could render the husband’s life intolerable. This behaviour, the bench noted, falls within the broader scope of cruelty under matrimonial laws.
However, the wife’s counsel argued that the husband’s claims of cruelty lacked proper mention in his original petition and could not be substantiated through evidence. The wife reportedly faced mistreatment when she visited Nabadwip to retrieve her belongings, leading her to file the complaint.
She also said that the husband made no effort to live with her at her official quarters in Narkeldanga, even though she had to endure long commutes from Kolaghat to her workplace in Sealdah before securing the Narkeldanga residence. The counsel asserted that the husband had not been evicted from the Narkeldanga residence and dismissed his allegations as unproven.
In its judgment, the high court slammed the trial court for relying on its subjective views of marriage and morality rather than treating the case as unique to the couple’s circumstances. It emphasised that matrimonial disputes must be evaluated based on the specific situation of the parties involved, not idealistic notions of a perfect marriage.
Ultimately, the division bench overturned the trial court’s decision, granting the husband divorce.
