The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently dismissed a woman’s appeal against a family court’s decision to grant her husband a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty. The Court emphasized that a spouse engaging in vulgar conversations with others, despite objections, amounts to mental cruelty.
A division bench comprising Justices Vivek Rusia and Gajendra Singh observed that “no husband would tolerate that his wife is in conversation through mobile by way of these type of vulgar chatting.” The Court further stated that while both husband and wife have the freedom to communicate with friends, such conversations should remain “decent and dignified, especially when it is with an opposite gender, which may not be objectionable to the life partner.”
The couple had tied the knot in 2018. The husband, who is partially deaf, alleged that his wife began mistreating his mother soon after marriage and left their home within a month and a half. Additionally, he accused her of engaging in explicit conversations with her former lovers on WhatsApp. As evidence, he presented chat transcripts in court.
The wife, however, denied the allegations, claiming that her husband had hacked her phone and fabricated the messages to frame her. She also accused him of domestic violence and demanding a dowry of ₹25 lakh.
Despite her claims, the High Court noted that her own father had admitted to police that she was in the habit of chatting with male friends. “The learned family court has observed that father of the appellant is a practicing lawyer having 40-50 years standing in the Bar but he did not enter into the witness box to deny his statement given to the police,” the Court remarked.
Furthermore, the Court highlighted that the woman had not filed any counter-complaints of domestic violence, indicating that the husband’s allegations were substantiated. “The respondent has certainly made out the case by way of evidence that the appellant committed mental cruelty upon him,” the bench concluded.
With this ruling, the High Court upheld the family court’s decision, granting the husband a divorce.
