The Chhattisgarh High Court has upheld a family court order granting divorce to a man whose wife insulted him by calling him a “paaltu chuha” (pet rat) for refusing to leave his parents, according to a report by Bar and Bench.

The Court said the wife’s conduct of repeatedly pressuring her husband to abandon his parents amounted to mental cruelty.

“This conduct cannot be considered benign… it underscores mental cruelty, particularly in the context of Indian joint family values, where compelling a spouse to forsake his parents is held as cruelty,” the Bench of Justice Rajani Dubey and Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad observed.

THE CASE

The couple married in 2009 and had a child together. In 2016, the husband approached court seeking divorce, accusing his wife of cruelty and desertion. He said she left the matrimonial home in 2010 and never returned, except for a short reconciliation attempt in 2011, Bar and Bench report mentioned.

He also produced a text message from her that read: “If you leave your parents and stay with me, respond; otherwise don’t ask.”

The wife, however, denied cruelty. She told the court that she was emotionally and financially neglected, and also accused her husband of abusive behaviour.

In 2019, a Raipur family court dissolved the marriage, after which the wife moved the High Court.

HIGH COURT’S VERDICT

The High Court held that her actions, including the insulting remarks and insistence that her husband live away from his parents, clearly caused mental suffering.

“Though styled as conditional, this message confirms her insistence on the respondent abandoning his parents,” the Bench said, adding that her prolonged stay at her parental home without sufficient reason further strengthened the husband’s case, Bar and Bench report mentioned.

The Court also clarified that the wife’s pending plea for restitution of conjugal rights could not undo the family court’s findings of cruelty and desertion.

While upholding the divorce, the court ordered the husband, an accountant at the District Cooperative Bank in Raipur, to pay Rs 5 lakh as permanent alimony to his wife. This would be in addition to the monthly maintenance she already receives under criminal procedure law.

The Bench noted that the amount was fixed keeping in mind her employment, her responsibility to care for their son, and the husband’s financial condition.

– Ends