Delhi High Court ruled that making derogatory remarks to a spouse’s employer amounts to cruelty. The court upheld a divorce, stating marriage requires “mutual respect and adjustment.”
New Delhi: Today, on July 24, the Delhi High Court recently upheld a family court’s decision to grant divorce to a man, ruling that making derogatory and defamatory allegations about one’s spouse to their employer amounts to mental cruelty in a marriage.
The court emphasized that mutual respect, tolerance, and adjustment are the key elements of a healthy marital relationship, and violating these principles can be considered cruelty under matrimonial law.
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The judgment was delivered on July 1 by a division bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Renu Bhatnagar. The court was hearing an appeal filed by the wife, challenging the divorce decree granted to the husband by the family court.
The couple had been married since 1989 and had two children before they started living separately in 2010–2011.
The wife alleged that her husband had taken illegal measures to forcefully evict her and their children from the matrimonial home. However, the High Court dismissed her appeal and upheld the family court’s findings.
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The bench observed that both parties had accused each other of adultery during the legal proceedings, but highlighted the inappropriate conduct of the wife, who had written complaints to her husband’s employer, including allegations of adultery.
The court found such conduct to be unacceptable and categorized it as mental cruelty.
Quoting from the judgment, the bench said,
“Irrespective of the merits of these complaints, and regardless of whether the allegations made therein were false or true, we find that making such derogatory and defamatory remarks in the form of complaints to the employer of the spouse are nothing but cruelty.”
The court clarified that it was not concerned with whether the allegations were proven or not but focused on the nature and purpose of such complaints.
The court further remarked that
“marriage entails mutual respect and adjustment and some parties take less time to adjust with each other while the others take longer time.”
The judgment stressed that
“tolerance, adjustment and mutual respect” form the basic “foundations of a sound and healthy marriage.”
The court rejected the wife’s argument that her complaints were justified due to the husband’s conduct. It pointed out that the employer of the husband had no role in resolving their marital dispute and that the complaints seemed aimed at humiliating the man in his professional environment.
The bench categorically stated,
“The woman’s complaints to her husband’s employer, particularly about the unfounded allegation of adultery, can’t be used to address the issues of any wrong done to her, for his employer had no role.”
The court was also convinced that the complaints were sent deliberately to cause embarrassment. It noted,
“The woman’s complaints were made to harass the husband and humiliate him before his colleagues at workplace.”
Based on the evidence presented by the husband, the court agreed with the family court’s finding of cruelty and held that the divorce was rightly granted.
The bench remarked,
“The family court rightly dissolved the marriage between the parties by upholding the allegations of cruelty based on the man’s evidence.”
Finally, the court added that the long separation between the couple also supported the need to dissolve the marriage. It stated,
“The fact that the parties have been living separately for a long period of time, that is, around fifteen years now, without any resumption of marital cohabitation between the parties, can also be considered as an added ground while deciding the divorce petition.”
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