Cruelty As A Ground of Divorce: Male Perspective

CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE: MALE
PERSPECTIVE
Dissertation submitted in part fulfillment for the requirement of the
Degree of
LL.M
Submitted by Supervised by
RESHAM KHANNA DR. ANJU TYAGI
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY
DELHI (INDIA)
2016
DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE
I hereby declare that the dissertation entitled “Cruelty As A Ground OF Divorce: Male
Perspective”submitted at National Law University, Delhiis the outcome of my own
work carried out under the supervision of Dr. Anju Tyagi, Associate Professor,
National Law University, Delhi.
I further declare that to the best of my knowledge, the dissertation does not contain any
part of work, which has not been submitted for the award of any degree either in this
University or in any other institution without proper citation.
Resham Khanna
Roll No. 43 LL.M 15
National Law University, Delhi
New Delhi
May 30, 2016
i
CERTIFICATE OF SUPERVISOR
This is to certify that the work reported in the LL.M dissertation entitled “Cruelty As A
Ground Of Divorce: Male Perspective” submitted by Resham Khanna at National Law
University, Delhi is a bona fide record of his original work carried out under my
supervision. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the dissertation: (i) embodied the
work of candidate herself; (ii) has been duly completed; and (iii) is up to the standard,
both in respect of content and language, for being referred to the examiner.
Dr. Anju Tyagi

Associate Professor,
National Law University, Delhi
New Delhi
May 30, 2016
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Various people have helped me to complete this dissertation in numerous ways and I am
thankful to all of them.
I express my deep sense of gratitude to Professor (Dr.) Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor,
National Law University, Delhi.
I owe my sincere thanks to my supervisor Dr. Anju Tyagi. The uphill task of completing
this dissertation would not have been possible without her supervision and timely
guidance.
I would also like to thank Professor (Dr.) Subhash Chander Raina, the Dean of my former
college, Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.
I express my sincerethanks to my friends Kanika Nangrani and Monalisa Kosaria for

providing me their precious time and helping me through the extensive research work
unhesitatingly. Their guidance is an invaluable contribution for this dissertation.
I am immensely grateful to the staff of all the libraries, which I visited i.e., Library of
National Law University, Delhi, Faculty of Law, Delhi University Campus for providing
necessary reading and reference material.
It would never have been possible to complete this dissertation without untiring support
from my family and friends. I thank my parents from the depth of my heart for their
support and help.
iii
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
1. All LJ Allahabad Law Journal

2. Art. Article
3. CWN Calcutta Weekly Notes
4. Cr. P. C. Criminal Procedure Code
5. DLT Delhi Law Times
6. DB Division Bench
7. DMC Divorce and Matrimonial Cases
8. Ed. Edition
9. E.g. Example
10. FIR First Information Report
11. Ibid In the same place
12. ICRW International Center for Research on Women
13. Id In the same place but at different pages
14. I.e. That is to say
15. Infra Below
16. IPC Indian Penal Code
17. SC Supreme Court
18. SCC Supreme Court Cases
19. SCJ Supreme Court Journal
20. Sec. Section
21. Supra As Above
22. Vol. Volume
23. Vs. Versus
24. WR Weekly Reports
25. & And
26. AIR All India Report
27. CHN Calcutta High Court Notes
28. HLR Hindu Law Reports
iv
29. KLT Kerala Law Times
30. Cri. LJ Criminal Law Journal
31. LLJ Labour Law Journal
32. ILR(Bom) Indian Law Reports (Bombay)
33. ILR Indian Law Journal
v
LIST OF STATUTES
1. Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939

2. Indian Divorce Act, 1869
3. Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976
4. Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937
5. Native Converts Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866
6. Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936
7. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
8. The Constitution of India
9. The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973
10. The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
11. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
12. The Indian Penal Code, 1860
13. The Special Marriage Act, 1954
vi
TABLE OF CASES
1. A.P. Ranga Rao v. Vijayalakshmi, (1990) 1 DMC 567 (Mad)

2. A.v.B., (1997) II DMC 373 (Ker)
3. Ajay Pal Singh Vs. Smt. Dr. Rosy Singh, AIR2012Chh69,MANU/CG/0069/2012
4. Amita v. A.K. Rathore, AIR 1999 MP 218
5. Anita @ Sena Goswami v. Sourendra Kanta Goswami, (2000) II DMC 126 (Cal-
DB)
6. Anita Rani Vs. Suresh Kumar MANU/PH/0270/2015
7. Archana Bag v. Madan Mohan Bag (2001) 1 CHN 16 (Cal-DB)
8. Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar AIR 2014 SC 2756
9. Aruna Jalan v. Capt. (now) Major Ramesh Chand Jalan, AIR 1988 All 239
10. Ashok Sharma v. Santosh Sharma AIR 1987 Del 63
11. Balbir Kaur v. Gurdev Singh, (2000) 1 HLR 316 (P&H)
12. Barnali Sen (nee Dasgupta) v. Debasish Sen, (2002) 1 HLR 192 (Cal DB)
13. Basker v. Basker, (1949) I All ER 247
14. Bhagwanti v. Laxmandas Panjwani AIR 2000 MP 190
15. Chandra V. Captain M.C. Pandey (1981) 2 DMC 1
16. D. Manga @Mangamma v. D. Venkata Ramana, (2000) 1 DMC 663 (AP- DB)
17. Dalbir Kaur v. Daljit Singh, (1996) 2 HLR 644 (P&H)
18. Dastane v. Dastane AIR 1975 SC 1534
19. Debra Clare Seymour v. Pradeep Arnold Seymour, (2002) II DMC 144 (Del)
20. G. Padmini v. G. Srivananda Babu, (2000) 2 HLR 99 (AP DB)
21. G.V.N. Kameswara Rao v. G. Jabilli AIR 2002 SC 576
22. Gollins v. Gollins (1963) 2 AII ER 966
23. Gurcharan Singh v. Sukhdev Kaur, AIR 1979 P&H 98
24. Harbhajan Singh v. Amarjeet AIR 1986 Raj 13
25. Holden v. Holden (1810) 1 Hag Con 453
26. Indu Bala Toppo v. Francis Xavier Toppo, (2001) II DMC 631 (Del- FB)
27. J. Sudhakar Shenoy v. Vrinda Shenoy, (2001) @ HLR 416 (Kant DB)
vii
28. Jaiprakash Dattatray Patade v. Usha Jaiprakash Patade, (2005) 1 HLR 172 (Bom
DB)
29. Jamieson v. Jamieson (1952) AC 525
30. Jayachandra v. Anil Kaur AIR 2005 SC 534
31. Jhabbarmal v. Guddi @ Kamala, (2002) II DMC 39 Raj
32. Jialal Abrol v. Sarla Devi, AIR 1978 J&K 69
33. Joshodeb Arjun (Dr.) Vs.Chirontoni Nandi (Arjun) & Anr: 2013(3)GLT366,
MANU/GH/0183/2013
34. Jyotsna Mukherjee v. Sri Utpal mukherjee, (1999) 2 HLR 43 (Cal DB)
35. K SrinivasVs.K. Sunita, 2014(10)ADJ408, MANU/SC/1050/2014
36. K. Srinivas Rao Vs. D.A. Deepa MANU/SC/0180/2013, 2013III AD (S.C.) 458
37. Kailash Rani v. Kimit Lal, (1997) 1 HLR 174 (P&H)
38. Kalapala Babu Rao v. Kalapala Ammeji, (1991) I DMC 632
39. Kalpana Jain v. Shiv Kumar Jain, (2003) II DMC 828 (MP)
40. Kalpana v. Surendra Nath, AIR 1985 ALL 253
41. Kamleswari Bai v. Peeluram Sahi AIR 2010 Chh 16 at 18
42. Kaushalya v. Mast Ram, AIR 1981 HP 63
43. Kiran Robinson v. Ajeet Robinson II (2002) DMC 462 at 464 (Del)
44. Krishna Banerjee v. Bhann Bikash Bandyopadhyay, 2002 CWN 48 (Cal)
45. Lakshmi Shanmugham v. P.R. Shanmugham, (1995) 2 HLR 685 (Mad
46. Laloo v. Bachi, AIR 1986 Raj 49
47. Lokeshwari v. Sinivasan Rao, AIR 2000 AP 456
48. M. K. Malhotra v. Kriti Malhotra, AIR 1987 Del 266
49. Madhu Rani v. Tarsen Lal Verma, 1980 HLR 710 (P&H)
50. Malathi RaviVs. B.V. Ravi AIR 2014 SC 2881
51. Manisha Jha v. Kunal Kanti Jha, (1998) 1 HLR 518 (Cal)
52. Manisha Tyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, (2007) 1 HLR 297 (P&H DB)
53. Marry v. Raghvan, AIR 1979 MP 40
54. Mary Browne v. A.N, Brrowne, AIR 1937 Oudh 52
55. Mohanan v. Thankamani, (1995) 1 DMC 327: (1994) 2 KLT 677 (Ker-DB)
56. Mohinder Singh Virdi v. Malkiat Kaur, 1978 HLR 699 (P&H)
viii
57. N. Sreepadachar v. Vasantha Bai AIR 1970 Mys 232
58. Nalini Sunder v. G.V. Sunder, (2003) 1 DMC 254 (Kant-DB)
59. Narendra Kumar Gupta v. Indu, AIR 2002 Raj 6: (2002) 1 DMC 430 (Raj-DB)
60. Naresh Purohit (Dr.) v. Dr. P.K. Shobhana, AIR 1999 MP 108
61. Naveen Kohli v. Neelu Kohli, (2006) 4 SCC 558
62. Nijhawan v. Nijhawan, AIR 1973 Del 200
63. Nirmala Bhandari v. Mangal Singh Bhandari, (2006) 2 HLR 541 (Uttaranchal)
64. P. Natrajan v. Thamizmani, (2002) II DMC 618 (Mad)
65. P.K. Vijayappan Nair v. J. Ammini Amma AIR 1997 Ker 170
66. P.L. Sayal v. Sarla Rani, AIR 1961 Punj 125
67. Pankaj Mahajan v. Dimple @ Kajal (2011) 12 SCC 1
68. Parag Mittal v. Vikita Mittal, AIR 2000 Del 304
69. Parimi Meher Seshu v. Parimi Nageswara Sastry, AIR 1994 AP 92 (DB)
70. Pranati Chatterjee v. Shri Gautam, (2006) 2 HLR 21 (Cal DB)
71. Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, AIR 2002 SC 2582
72. R. Sureka Vs. G. Jayakumar MANU/KA/3429/2013
73. Raj Kishore Prasad v. Raj Kumari Devi, AIR 1986 Pat 362
74. Rajinder Bhrdwaj v. Anita Sharma, (1993) 1 HLR 388 Del
75. Rajinder Kumari v. Daryodhan Lal, 1980 HLR 301
76. Rajinder Singh Joon v. Tara Wati, AIR 1980 Del 213
77. Rajinder Singh v. Tarawati, AIR 1980 Del 213
78. Rajni v. Sanjay Kumar, (2002) II DMC 457 (MP)
79. Rakesh Sharma v. Surabhi Sharma, AIR 2002 Raj 138
80. Rama Kanta v. Mohinder Laxmidas Bhandula, AIR 1996 P&H 98
81. Ramesh Jangid v. Sunita AIR 2007 Raj 160
82. Rani Devi v. Husan Lal, AIR 1988 P&H 65
83. Reeves v. Reeves, 3 S&t 139: 32 LJ J&M 178
84. Rukmani Devi v. Badri Narayan, (2002) 1 DMC 552 (Raj DB)
85. Russell v. Russell (1897) AC 305
86. S. Hanumantha Rao v. S. Ramani, AIR 1999 SC 1318
87. Sadhana Srivastava v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, AIR 2006 All 7
ix
88. Sandeep Gade v. Sandeep Vinayak Gade AIR 2005 Bom 180 at 193
89. Sanker Prasad Pal v. Sabita Pal, 97 CWN 747 (Cal-DB)
90. Santana Banerjee v. Schindra Nath Banerjee, AIR 1990 Cal 367
91. Satya v. Siri Ram, AIR 1983 P&H 252: 1983 HLR 117 (P&H)
92. Savitri v. Mulchand AIR 1987 Del 52
93. Shimla Devi v. Kuldeep Sharma, (2001) 1 DMC 8 (Raj-DB)
94. Shingara Singh v. Sukhwinder Kaur, 1980 HLR 644 (P&H)
95. Shobha Rani v. Madhukar Reddi, AIR 1988 SC 121
96. Sukumar Mukherjee v. Tripti Mukherjee, AIR 1992 Pat 32
97. Sulekha v. Kamala Kanta, AIR 1980 Cal 370
98. Suman Kapur v. Sudhir Kapur, AIR 2009 SC 589
99. Suman Kaushik Vs N.P. Kaushik MANU/DE/0143/2013
100. Surabhi Agrawal v. Sanjay Agrawal, (200) 1 DMC 453 (MP-DB)
101. Surinder Singh v. Tejinder Kaur, (1987) 1 HLR 86 (Del)
102. Susarla Subramanya Sastry v. S. Padmakshi, (2005) 2 HLR 709 (AP DB)
103. Sushil Kumar Verma v. Usha, AIR 1987 Del 86
104. Tapan Kumar Kundu v. Bira Kundu, AIR 1988 Cal 223
105. Trimbak Narayan Bhagwat v. Kamudini Bhagwat, AIR 1967 Bom 80
106. V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat AIR 1994 SC 710
107. Vasireddy Vs. Vasireddy Naveena MANU/AP/0948/2015
108. Velayudhan v. Chandrika, (2003) 2 KLT 310 (Ker-DB)
109. Vibha Srivastava v. Dinesh Kumar Srivastava, AIR 1919 346
110. Vijayappa Nair v. Ammini Amma, (1997) 1 DMC 648
111. Vinod Kumar Rai v. Manju rai, (2007) 1 HLR 433 (All)
112. Vishwanath S/o Sitaram Agrawal Vs. Sau. Sarla Vishwanath
AgrawalMANU/SC/0513/2012
x
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S. No Title Page No.

Declaration by the Candidate i
Certificate of Supervisor ii
Acknowledgment iii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations iv-v
List of Statutes vi
List of Cases vii-x
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1-9
1.1 INTRODUCTION 1-3
1.2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 3-5
1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 5-6
1.4 OBJECTIVES 6
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY 6-7
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 7
1.7 HYPOTHESIS 7
1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 8
1.9 CHAPTERIZATION 8-9
CHAPTER 2 CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 10-21
2.1 THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE 10-15
2.1.1 Concept of Marriage vis-a-vis Status of Women in 10-13
Vedic Era
2.1.2 Concept of Marriage vis-a-vis Status of Women in Post- 13-15
Vedic Era
2.2 THE CONCEPT OF DIVORCE 15-21
CHAPTER 3 THE CONCEPT OF CRUELTY 22-40
3.1 MEANING OF CRUELTY 22-27
3.2 CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE 27-29
3.3 CLASSIFICATION OF CRUELTY 29-36
3.3.1 Physical Cruelty 29-31
3.3.2 Mental Cruelty 31-36
3.4 CRUELTY UNDER OTHER LEGAL PROVISIONS 36-40
3.4.1 Concept of Matrimonial Cruelty in Indian Penal Code 36-37
3.4.2 Cruelty Under The Protection of Women from Domestic 37-40
Violence Act, 2005
CHAPTER 4 CRUELTY TO HUSBANDS 41-61
4.1 CRUELTY TO HUSBANDS BY WIVES 41-49
4.2 CASE STUDY 49-57
4.2.1 Malathi RaviVs. B.V. Ravi 49-50
4.2.2 JoshodebArjun (Dr.) Vs.Chirontoni Nandi (Arjun) 50-51
&Anr.
4.2.3 Ajay Pal Singh Vs. Smt. Dr. Rosy Singh 51-52
4.2.4 Vishwanath S/o SitaramAgrawal Vs. Sau. 52-53
SarlaVishwanathAgrawal
4.2.5 K SrinivasVs.K. Sunita 53
4.2.6 SumanKaushikVs N.P. Kaushik 53-54
4.2.7 Vasireddy Vs. VasireddyNaveena 54
4.2.8 R. Sureka Vs. G. Jayakumar 55
4.2.9 Anita Rani Vs. Suresh Kumar 56
4.2.10 K. SrinivasRao Vs. D.A. Deepa 56-57
4.3 CASE ANALYSIS 58-61

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 62-71
BIBLIOGRAPHY xi-xiii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Cruelty to husbands by their wives is not an uncommon scenario in modern India. But if
we rewind some 30-40 years, it was almost inconceivable that one day even husbands
could also be harassed and tortured by their dominant wives. The concept of marriage has
changed drastically. The institution of marriage which is regarded as a sacrament, an
indissoluble and eternal union since ages in Hindus is losing its holy and sacred element.
Marriage can now be easily dissolved with a device called “Divorce”. This change in the
societal set-up is directly proportional to the changing position of woman in India. From
Goddess Sita in the Vedic era to a son bearing slave in the medieval era, the women in
India has faced the best and the worst phases of generation. With the passing time the
position of women had deteriorated until the social reformers and law makers raised their
voices in favour of women empowerment and formed laws exclusively for uplifting the
status of women in the society.
Cruelty against women have always been a part and parcel of the patriarchal society since
time immemorial but the post independence women empowering laws have helped in
improving the position of the women in the society. Although, it would be incorrect to
state that these laws have achieved their goal. Even in this 21st century, the women face
various kinds of cruelty and inhuman behavior from male fraternity in the form of
physical violence, mental torture and harassment. But with the passage of time the
attitude of the society is gradually changing towards women due to education, awareness,
women-centric laws, western-influence, etc. thus, one could see a drastic upliftment of
the status of the women of urban Indian society. In the same way the marital relations in
an urban set-up have also transformed up-side-down. Cruelty as a ground of divorce,
which was initially formed for liberating a wife from the atrocities of her husband is now
being frequently used by innocent husbands against their torturous and insensitive wives
in urban India.
1
The modern urban woman of India is well educated, financially independent and in no
way lagging behind men in any walk of life. The present day woman is far more secure
than her past sisters who used to suffer everything in silence. There has been a lot of
instances in the last few decades where the wife has treated her husband with cruelty and
the most common of the cases include where the wife has mentally tortured her husband
by abusing, insulting, defaming him and his family members, having an extra marital
affair, deserting her husband, etc. With the introduction of women empowering laws such
as Section 498-A of Indian Penal Code, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, Domestic
Violence Act, 2005, etc a new form of torturing the husbands and her in-laws has been
discovered by a handful financially sound, well-educated wives. The balance of scale has
tilted reversely in favor of educated, urban wives. These wives, file false criminal charges
under Section 498-A which is a cognizable and non-bailable offence and get their
husbands and in-laws arrested under this provision. This leads to immense sufferance
mental agony to the husband and his family. The Courts do recognize filing of such false
criminal charges and civil complaints by wives against their husbands and in-laws as an
act of cruelty and a ground of divorce. In the last 5 years, such cases of lodging false
FIRs under Section 498-A of Indian Penal Code by the aggressive urban wives against
their husbands and their families for harassing and blackmailing them for meeting their
preposterous demands have been observed. The police authorities show corrupt,
insensitive and careless attitude and arrest the husband and at times his old parents
immediately on lodging of the FIR without verifying the facts of the case to their
satisfaction.
With the advent of feminist movements and legal awareness, the independent urban
women have become very sensitive for their rights. They demand equality, freedom,
privacy, etc which is their right by birth. But this has lead to an increase in intolerance
among the educated urban women for their husbands and in-laws. The joint family
systems are eroding. The financially independent urban wife avoids residing with her in-
laws under the same roof. Her priority is shifting to self-preservation and thus made her
aggressive and insensitive towards her husband and his family. The age-old traditions and
values are fading away and so is the institution of marriage.
2
The concern is not the preservation of the institution of marriage but protection of those
innocent husbands and his family members from the torture and cruelty of their
insensitive wives. The above task can only be achieved by the cooperation of legislature,
educational institutions, police authorities, media and women cells so that these husbands
can be saved from the cruelty and torture of their aggressive wives.
1.2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Since time immemorial the Hindus have considered their marriage as a sacrament and an
indissoluble union. But in the modern society, divorce has become a large aspect of
Indian personal laws. No longer marriage is an indissoluble union among Hindus
(ParasDiwan, 2008). In the same way, with the change in societal set-up, the status of the
women in the Indian society has constantly changed or to be precise, with the passing
time, the condition of the women has deteriorated in Indian society (Kumkum Roy,
2005). In the Vedic Era, women held a respectful position in the society but as the
orthodox religious practices of son being the source of salvation, propagated by the
Brahmin class started consolidating, the status of the women gradually declining to a
child bearing slave with no respect in the patriarchal society. The women were treated
with cruelty by the society and were declined the basic right of education, freedom of
speech and profession. Moreover, evil practices of child marriage, Sati pratha, female
infanticide and domestic violence in the form of physical beatings and mental torture
started gaining grounds (Anjani Kant, 2012). As a result in the 19th and 20th century
various reform movements took place for uplifting the status of women in the society and
the result of which post-independence, Divorce laws were introduced under the Hindu
Marriage Act, 1955 and Special Marriage Act, 1954 (MaitrayeeChaudhuri, 2011).
Divorce is not a native concept and is taken up from the English law. Post-independence,
the Constitution of India and the legislature made various laws for improving the position
of women in the Indian society. Cruelty which was a ground of judicial separation, was
made the ground of divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 by the 1976
Amendments (Mookherjee,). Similarly, various legal provisions were introduced for
3
empowering the women of India such as Section 498A of Indian Penal Code, 1860,
Dowry Prohibition Act, 1951 and the newly introduced Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
These provisions are introduced to protect a woman from the cruelty and atrocities faced
by her in a matrimonial relation by her husband and his family members. Although these
women empowering legal provisions have not achieved their goals as in most of the rural
areas and in orthodox families, a woman is considered as a second class citizen and is
treated with utmost cruelty and brutality by her in-laws and the society (Shirin M. Rai,
2008). But it would be incorrect to say that the status of women has not improved. The
present day urban woman is far more secure than her past sisters who used to suffer
everything in silence. The modern urban woman is well-educated, financially
independent and socially active and thus they are pacing at a very high speed in the
various fields of life. Although things have changed yet the change in some of the cases
have not yielded a good result (ShivaniGoswami, 2009).
If we talk about the matrimonial relationships in the modern urban society, cruelty to
husbands by their wives is not an uncommon scenario. The educated wife belonging to
the urban setup are found guilty of treating her husband and in-laws with cruelty (most of
the cases covered are of mental cruelty), and thus the Courts have granted divorce to the
aggrieved husbands on the grounds of cruelty done to them by their dominant,
aggressive, insensitive and intolerant wives. Besides the acts of deserting her husbands,
having illicit relationships with third persons, insulting, abusing, shouting at her husband
and relatives, publishing defaming contents and complaining to the employer against her
husband, aborting the child without informing her husband, the modern urban wives are
found guilty of misusing the cruelty related laws i.e. filing false cases under Section 498-
A of IPC and under other penal and civil provisions (Prof. Kusum, 2014). The Courts
have shown a progressive approach in this regard and has held filing of false cases under
the above women empowering laws as a ground of divorce because doing so inflicts
mental agony and pain to the husband as the husband and his family has to undergo
through unnecessary harassment and torture in the hands of police (P.K. Das, 2008). At
the same time the Courts have given strict directions to the police authorities to follow
proper procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code to avoid harassment faced by the
4
innocent husbands and their families (Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar, 2014 8 SCC
273).
Divorces on the ground of cruelty to husbands by their wives are frequently witnessed in
the urban society but our legislature does not provide any relief (such as special legal
provisions) to husbands unlike women except for granting divorce to the aggrieved
husband. Thus, in order to curb the atrocities against the innocent husbands, the foremost
work is to recognize male victimization and the later will follow (Philip N.S.Rumney,
2007).
The various women organizations and NGOs will have to see cases from an unbiased
lense and should refrain from instigating the women of 21st century (A Comprehensive
Report on the Misuse of Anti-Dowry Laws in Marital Disputes). At the same time the
adversarial system in the society needs to be reviewed (Flavia Agnes, 2002).
1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The present research intended to focus upon cruelty done to husbands by their wives in
modern urban Indian society. With the help of a doctrinal method of research, the
proposed exercise attempted to understand the concept of cruelty and to classify the act of
cruelty into mental and physical in order to study the various case laws under this
classification where the courts have decreed divorce in favour of husbands on the
grounds of cruelty done to them by their wives. Further, the research has viewed the
concept of marriage and divorce in relation to the changing position of urban women in
the Indian society by evaluating the various legal provisions empowering women.
Moreover, the research has endeavored to critically analyze the case laws from the year
2010-2015 to find out the common issues in various cases where the wife has treated her
husband with cruelty. What are the causes and reasons which lead to harassment and
torture of husbands in hands of their wives? What are the common issues to be identified
in the above case laws? The research has tried to infer a common trend in the cases of
cruelty against husbands in recent years. Further, the issue of misuse of women-
empowering laws by urban wives against their husbands has been examined. Finally, the
5
research has critically viewed the need for the recognition of male victimization and
made recommendations to keep a check on police authorities as well a need to improve
the adversarial legal system of India.
1.4 OBJECTIVES
 To study the concept of marriage and divorce from the pre-vedic

times to the present era with reference to the changing position of the
women in the Indian society over these years.
 To understand the concept and classification of cruelty under

personal, criminal and civil legislations.
 To study the various cases where the Courts have granted a decree of
divorce in favour of husband on the grounds of cruelty done to him by
his wife.
 To analyze the case laws, where the divorce is granted to the husbands
on the grounds of cruelty from 2010 to 2015 in order to infer the
common causes and reasons for cruelty by wives.
 To critically review the major concerns in regard to cruelty to

husbands by wives and providing recommendations for the same.
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY

The researcher has dealt with the concept of marriage and in India with reference to the
changing position of women in Indian society over the years. The concept of cruelty
under various personal, secular, criminal and civil legislations has been discussed.
Cruelty as a ground of divorce under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 has been dealt in detail
with the help of various case laws where the wives have done cruelty to their husbands. A
6
case study has been conducted by the researcher where the cases of divorce on the
grounds of cruelty by wives to their husbands in the last 5 years have been analyzed by
the researcher to observe and infer the recent trends and common issues in these cases.
The researcher has finally endeavored to give suggestions for curbing this menace.
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 What is the concept of marriage and divorce in Indian society?
 How has the status of women in Indian society changed from time to
time?
 What is the concept of cruelty and how it is dealt under various

legislations?
 What are the different cases where the Courts have granted a decree of
divorce in favour of the husband on the grounds of cruelty done to
him by his wife?
 What are the common issues and trends in cases of cruelty to

husbands by their wives in the last 5 years?
 What are the major concerns in relation to increasing cases of cruelty

to husbands by their wives and the recommendations for the same?
1.7 HYPOTHESIS
Women empowerment is a major cause for increasing intolerance among urban Indian
women, thus leading to an increased number of divorce cases on the grounds of cruelty
done to husbands by their wives.
7
1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The methodology used in the above research is purely doctrinal. The research has been
conducted by referring various books, articles, cases, journals, reports and online sources.
A case study has been conducted by referring to various Supreme Court and High Court
case laws and the same have been analyzed by the researcher.
1.9 CHAPTERIZATION
Chapter 1 deals with the introduction of the topic, “Cruelty as a ground of Divorce: Male
Perspective” where cruelty by urban wives is perceived from the lense of their husbands.
This chapter further deals with the scope of study, literature review, statement of
problem, objectives, research questions, hypothesis and research methodology.
Chapter 2 deals with the concept of marriage in the pre vedic and post vedic era in
reference to the changing position of women in the Indian society. It further deals with
the reformation of the matrimonial laws in Indian society in reference to the introduction
of divorce laws by the legislature post-independence under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
and its impact on the Indian society.
Chapter 3 deals with the concept of cruelty, its definition and meaning as given by
various scholars and judges in their judgments and classification of the concept of cruelty
as physical and mental cruelty. It further deals with cruelty as a ground of divorce under
various matrimonial laws including Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Christian and Secular laws in
India. This chapter also deals with the concept of cruelty under other legal provisions i.e.
Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Domestic Violence Act, 2005. In the end the chapter
elaborates the changing concept of cruelty in Indian in the modern scenario.
Chapter 4 deals with instances and cases where the wives have treated their husbands and
in-laws with cruelty and the Courts have granted divorce in favour of the aggrieved
husbands on the grounds of cruelty by their wives. This chapter identifies the insensitive
and aggressive side of urban women in the 21st century as it further deals with a case
study of 10 cases from the year 2010 to 2015 where the educated urban wives have done
8
cruelty to their husbands. This case study also demonstrates that the women-empowering
laws such as 498-A of IPC, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, Domestic Violence Act, 2005
and other penal provisions have been heavily misused by these intolerant modern urban
women to harass and torture their husbands and in-laws. Thus, this case study depicts a
new trend of filing false cases under the above mentioned legal provisions against the
husbands which the courts have recognized as a conduct which gives immense mental
agony and sufferance to the husbands and their families thus held to be a ground of
divorce.
Chapter 5 deals with the major concerns in regard to cruelty against husbands by their
wives as well as recommendations for the same.
9
CHAPTER 2
THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE
2.1 THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE
2.1.1 CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE VIS-A-VIS STATUS OF WOMEN IN VEDIC

ERA
The concept of marriage under Hindu traditions is regarded as a sacrament, indissoluble,

eternal union, i.e. a union which subsists not merely during this life but for all lives to
come.1 As quoted by Derrett, “the intention of the sacrament is to make the husband and
wife one, physically and psychically, for and spiritual purposes, for this life and after-
lives”.2 The objects of the Hindu marriage have been to have offsprings,3 to be able to
perform religious rites and sacrifices –which according to Manu, a man can perform only
along with his wife. He further stated that the achievement of highest conjugal happiness
and4 heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself are dependent on the wife. Manu has
emphasized upon the importance of marriage in a man’s life, a man who has not taken a
wife must be regarded as incomplete and imperfect.5 According to SatpathaBrahmana,
“the wife is verily half of the husband”6 The ancient Hindu sages have set-up a high
pedestal for wife in a sacred relationship known as marriage. “Those who have wives can
fulfill their due obligations in this world; those who have wives, truely have a family life;
those who have wives can be happy; those who have wives can lead a full life.”7 Manu
laid down: Wife is a divine institution given by God. Her unity (with her husband) is
established by the Vedas.8 A passage in Rig Veda states: “Be thou(wife) mother of my
heroic children, devoted to Gods, be thou queen in father-in-law’s household.”9 In the
1
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 1 (5th ed., 2008).
2
J.DUNCANM.DERRETT, A CRITIQUE OF MODERN HINDU LAW, BOMBAY 287 (1970).
3
MANU SMRITI, IX, 96.
4
5
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 14 (5th ed.,2008).
6
SATPATHABRAHMANA, V, 16, 10.
7
MAHABHARAT, ADIPARVA, 74, 40-41.
8
9
RIG VEDA, IX, 85.
10
Shastras, the wife and husbands are given various names. The husband is known as pati
i.e. the protector of his wife, he is also known as Bhartri, as he is meant to support his
wife. On the other hand, the wife is referred as jaya, because one’s own self is begotten
on her.10 According to Mahabharata, the wife is considered to be her husband’s best
friend. There ancient Hindu religious texts and scriptures draw an idealized picture of a
wife where she is regarded as the source of Dharma (righteous duty), Artha (wealth) and
Kama (love and sex) and even the source of Moksha (liberation from the cycle of
rebirth).11 In Ramayana, wife is referred to as the very soul of her husband. 12 She is the
lady of the house in her husband’s household, a wise counselor and a confidante as well
as the dearest disciple of her husband in the pursuit of art.13 Manu instructs the wife that
she should be a paturnuvarte, which means she should follow the same principles as her
husband.14
Thus, in ancient India, Hindus conceived marriage as a sacrament union or a holy knot
which implies that for Hindus, marriage is obligatory for begetting son and for
discharging their debt to their ancestors and for performing religious and spiritual
duties.15 A sacrament union also implies that it is a permanent and eternal union. This
means that the relationship of husband and wife continues not merely in this life but also
in lives to come. Thus, a marriage cannot be dissolved. Neither by sale nor by desertion
can a wife be released from her husband.16 Let mutual fidelity continue till death.17 This
was considered to be the highest Dharma of a husband and wife. Besides customary
divorce, Hindu law did not recognize divorce in any situation. Even if either of the
spouses was guilty of desertion, infidelity or conversion to another religion, the other
spouse could not get a release from such a marriage by means of divorce. Absence of
divorce was the general rule and acceptance of it due to custom an exception.
10
11
MAHABHARATA ANUPARVA, 46, 1-13.
12
RAMAYANA, 11, 37, 23-24.
13
14
MANU SMRITI, VIII, 228.
15
16
17
11
Although majority of the texts contemplated a permanent and indissoluble union,
however, in some texts we find that some sort of divorce, or at least the power of
abandonment of one spouse by the other was recognized.18Vasistha said: “A damsel
betrothed to one devoid of character and god family or afflicted by impotency, blindness
and the like or an outcaste or an epileptic or an infidel or incurably diseased… should be
taken away from him and married to another.” Although this text is only confined to
betrothal, in another text Narada and Parasara stated five cases in which a wife may
abandon her husband and take another: when the husband is (i) missing, (ii) dead, (iii)
when he has become an ascetic, (iv)when he is impotent, and (v) when he is an out-
caste.19Kautilya also mentions in his texts that a woman may give up her husband if he is
of a bad character, is absent for a long time, if he has become a traitor, or is likely to
endanger her life, has lost his virility or is an outcaste.20 At the same time there are some
texts which allow the husband to abandon his wife (tyaga). Manu mentions that a
husband could abandon his wife who was blemished, afflicted with disease, or previously
defiled or given to him fraudulently21. Yajnavalkya is also to the same effect that a
husband may supersede his wife and marry another if if she drinks wine, suffers from a
disease (of long standing), is deceitful, is extravagant in expenditure and speaks harsh
words.22 Thus, it is evident from the above texts that in rarest cases a husband or a wife
could abandon each other but it is doubtful whether the text in question refereed to
‘divorce’ in the mordern sense of the term.23 Kane observed: “divorce in the ordinary
sense of the word, i.e. divorce a vinculomtrimonii has been unknown to the
Dharamashastras and to the Hindu society for about two thousand years (except on the
ground of custom among the lower caste). Even when the husband was allowed to
abandon the wife for her lapse, still she was entitled to at least starving maintenance.
Therefore, abandonment (tyaga) was not only not divorce a vinculomatrimonii at all, but
also not even a divorce a mensa et thoro (separation from bed and board)”24. Thus, in the
18
D.K. KANE, HISTORY OF DHARAMSHASTRAS, II, Part I, 620.
19
NARADA, XII, 81; PARASARA, X, 26-35.
20
21
MANU SMRITI, IX, 27. See also MANU SMRITI, VII, 205.
22
YAJNAVALKYA, I, 80.
23
RADHAVINOD PAL, HISTORY OF HINDU LAW, 58, 375 (1959).
24
D.K. HISTORY OF DHARAMSHASTRA, II, 611, 620.
12
era of Vedas and Upanishads, marriage was considered to be a religious, holy and eternal
union. However, whatever be the tests on abandonment of the husband by the wife, the
predominant authority is in favour of the indissolubility of marriage. 25 It is quite evident
from the above discussion that during the ancient period, wife and husband were allowed
to abandon each other in some extremely exceptional cases but this practice was looked
down upon by the society and there are no authentic evidences to support whether the
husband or the wife in facto abandoned their spouse.
The position of woman on the whole was fairly satisfactory.26 Girls were educated like
boys, there was no seclusion of women, they used to move freely in society. In social and
religious gatherings they occupied a prominent position and had an absolute equality with
men in the eyes of religion.27 Although, in royal and rich families polygamy prevailed to
some extent, but ordinarily monogamy was the rule. Marriage in fact was a religious
necessity to both the man and the woman; neither could reach heaven without being
accompanied by his duly married consort.28 Women had the freedom to choose their
husband. The position of the wife was an honored one in the family.
2.1.2 CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE VIS-A-VIS STATUS OF WOMEN IN POST-

VEDIC ERA
In the post Vedic era the concept of marriage being a sacrament consolidated. Earlier in
the pre-Vedic era spritual scholars had mentioned of giving up of one’s spouse in the
rarest of rare case (to both men and women) but such privilege was taken away from
them in the post-vedic era. The priestly class rose up to a dominant position and was
considered as the messenger of God. They made stringent rules for both men and women
in respect of marital relations. The priestly class introduced a new concept of “pinddaan”.
According to this, it is only through son, the Hindu father and his ancestors could find
25
26
KUMKUM ROY & B.D. CHATTOPADHYAYA, READINGS IN EARLY INDIAN HISTORY: WOMEN IN EARLY
INDIAN SOCIETIES 52 (2005).
27
28
13
their way to “Moksha” i.e. salvation.29 Thus marriage became an inevitable part of
Hindus and begetting a son even more important. For the same reason gradually the
daughters started to become unwelcomed in the society and son became important to
them. At this juncture, the Hindus perceived marriage more as a religious duty than a
social and personal necessity. But with the passing time, the orthodox patriarchal beliefs
and practices started penetrating deeper in the society. Men wanted their dominance and
making the Hindu women subservient to them. Neither they were left with freedom of
choice, they became only the means for Hindu men to attain their end.30 The position of
the women in the post-vedic era deteriorated considerably. The current started flowing in
different directions. The neglect of women education and the lowering of their marriage
age produced disastrous consequences. Hindu women became physical machines of
production of praja for the family. She was locked into their houses and held no opinions
in public matters. Thus, in this patriarchal setup, women became dependant on men (she
used to be dependant on her father before marriage, her dependency used to shift on her
husband post marriage and in her later ages on son). The marriage also lost its
independent value as it failed to secure a firm grip in the changing events of Hindu life. 31
Society started considering women a weaker and vulnerable section. With the passing
time the position of the wife was reduced to a mother of her husband’s legitimate
children, or patrani, or the chief housekeeper or superintendent of female slaves (who
were generally concubines of her husband).32 With this also emerged the practices of
bigamy/polygamy, concubinage and prostitution. The marriage became a sacrament and
monogamous for her alone and her consent became irrelevant. She could never ask for
divorce or for another husband even if her husband was a lunatic, impotent, leper, a
deserter, a chronic patient of venereal diseases, or even a eunuch or a dead man.33
Whereas, on the contrary a husband could always mock at this sacrament with impunity
and arrogance by taking another woman into another and similar sacramental fold; and he
could do the same as many times as he wished without setting his previous wives free
29
ANJANI KANT, WOMEN AND THE LAW 33 (2012).
30
31
32
33
14
from the so-called eternal knot of marriage. Thus, evil practices such as child marriage,
abolition of widow re-marriage, Sati pratha started gaining grounds. Whatever
independence she enjoyed in the Vedic era seemingly began to erode with the passage of
time and made her condition pitiable. The social position of women in the society
worsened with the advent of Muslim rule which introduced purdah system and the
concept of triple talak. These practices further curbed the freedom of women in Indian
society. Quoting Altekar, “….Denied the benefits of education, brought up in the
authoritarian atmosphere, having no opportunities to develop their natural capacities,
women became helpless, illiterate, narrow-minded and peevish….”.34
2.2 CONCEPT OF DIVORCE
The term “Divorce” was unknown to the Hindu traditions and it came in India with the
advent of Muslims and given a legal shape by the Colonial Rulers. Going backwards, the
position of women was not satisfactory in the early period of British Rule. Cursing the
curse of polygamy, Vidyasagar says, “With the coolin Brahmin, the sacred rite of
matrimony has been notoriously degraded to a system of shameful traffic. These men for
some sordid gain of some paltry sum visited village after village accepting the hands of
scores of maidens, the great majority of whom were destined never to enjoy the blessings
of a wedded life.”35
In the nineteenth century, India began to discover her long cherished ideals and cultural
self-consciousness.36 This period came to be known as the “Renaissance” period in India
where the reformers advocated the social emancipation of women and at same time
aspired the restoration of such healthy and congenial conditions which once prevailed in
the early Vedic era.37 Although, in the 19th century, there was not much improvement in
the social conditions of the women in India, but in the 20th century, women came forward
with new demands to ensure her equal sharing with men in both private and public
34
SWAMI MADHAVANAND AND R.C. MAJUMDAR, GREAT WOMEN OF INDIA- IDEAL AND POSITION OF INDIAN
WOMEN IN SOCIAL LIFE 43,44 (1953).
35
ISHWAR CHANDRA VIDYASAGAR, FRIEND OF INDIA (MARCH 30, 1865).
36
37
15
spheres. A need was felt to modify the law in certain aspects so as to raise the standard of
women in the Indian society.38
Thus, with the inception of British Rule, impact of British ideas and literature also started
having its influence. British legislation also started intruding indirectly into the domain of
Hindu Law. Even though during the British period, the Indian courts took the position
that all the texts providing for the abandonment of one spouse by the other, or those texts
which permitted a wife to take a second husband in certain case, were merely
recommendatory and since the Hindu marriage was a sacramental Union, divorce was
unknown to the Hindu except under a valid custom.39
The modern matrimonial law in India has been greatly influenced by and based upon
English matrimonial law. In England, the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857 for the first time
permitted divorce by judicial process. Before 1857, divorce could be obtained only by a
private Act of parliament and only very rich could afford this luxury. Under the Act, the
husband could file a petition for divorce on the ground of wife’s adultery (single act was
enough), but a wife had to prove adultery coupled with either incest, bigamy, cruelty or
two years desertion or alternatively, rape or any other unnatural offence. This was the
typical mid Victorian attitude to sexual morality.40 The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1923
put both spouses at par and wife could also sue for divorce on the ground of adultery
simpliciter. The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937 added three more grounds; cruelty, three
years desertion and supervening incurable insanity.41 After the Second World War, a
movement developed for the reform of divorce law which accepts the break down of
marriage as the basic principle of divorce. Later, the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1973 was
passed which is a consolidating statute and retains the breakdown of marriage as the basic
ground of divorce. The Indian matrimonial law has closely followed the development in
English law. The Converts Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866 was passed to provide facility
of divorce to those native converts to Christianity whose spouses refused to cohabit with
38
39
M.P. JAIN, OUTLINES OF INDIAN LEGAL HISTORY 601 (3rd ed.,1972).
40
DR.PARASDIWAN, FAMILY LAW 124 (6th ed., 2001).
41
SECTION 2 AND 3 OF MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT, 1937.
16
them on account of their conversion.42 But the first divorce statute was passed in 1869.
The Indian Divorce Act, 1869 is based on the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857 and lays
down the same grounds of divorce. At the time when the statute was passed, it applied
only to Christian marriages.43 But divorce was not yet available to the high caste Hindus.
Although attempts of the enlightened Hindus to introduce divorce in Hindu law at All-
India level did not succeed44 but Divorce law was sporadically introduced by certain state
legislatures, some in the middle of the 20th century. Baroda was the first Indian state to
introduce divorce in Hindu Law by Legislation in the year 1931. 45 The provisions of this
Act were reviewed and consolidated in the Baroda Hindu Marriage Act, 1937 which is
generally based on the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937. After the above Act, Bombay
Hindu Divorce Act was passed in 1947. This was followed by the Madras Hindu
(Bigamy Prevention and Divorce) Act, 1949 and the Saurashtra Hindu Divorce Act,
1952. The states of Travancore and Cochin (now State of Karala) have had several
statutes which reformed the law of marriage and divorce.
However, attempts at reforming Hindu law and introducing divorce at All-India level
continued. But break-through was made between 1954-56, when Hindu law reforms were
introduced in the First Parliament of free India in the form of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
and Special Marriage Act, 1954.
In the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 divorce has been founded on the guilt-theory, blending
it with the traditional conservatism.46 In the 1955 Act, the three English traditional guilt
grounds i.e., adultery, cruelty and desertion were not made grounds of divorce but of
judicial separation47. Not “adultery” but “living in adultery”48 was a ground of divorce.
After the amendment of 1976, adultery, cruelty and desertion are recognized as grounds
42
NATIVE CONVERTS MARRIAGE DISSOLUTION ACT, 1866.
43
INDIAN DIVORCE ACT, 1869. The Indian Divorce Act was extended to marriages performed under the
Special Marriage Act 1872.
44
Dr. H.S. Gour, a liberal Hindu member of the Central Legislature, introduced a Hindu Divorce Bill
several times between 1928-1933 but every time the Bill was rejected.
45
It was later on replaced by the Baroda Hindu Nibandha of 1937.
46
47
Section 10, THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955 before the amendments of 1976.
48
Section 13(1)(i), THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955 before the amendments of 1976.
17
of divorce as well as judicial separation49. In the Act of 1955 virulent leprosy, incurable
and continuous insanity, and venereal diseases (all at least of 3 years duration) were made
grounds of divorce50. The 1976 amendments have deleted the period for all the 3 grounds
and have reworded ‘incurable and continuous insanity’51.
In 1964, Section 13 (1-A) has been inserted containing 2 clauses under which, non-
resumption of cohabitation for 2 years or upwards after the decree of judicial separation
or restitution of conjugal rights was made a ground of divorce. This is a modification of
clauses (viii) and (ix) of Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 195552. After the
amendment, either party to the marriage can prefer such petitions. However, this facility
is not available to the cases where the decrees of judicial separation and restitution of
conjugal rights were obtained prior to the passing of the Amendment of 1964. In 1970, an
identical provisions were enacted in the Special Marriage Act53.
The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976 reduced the time limits form two years to
one year in both the Acts.54 Section 13 (1-A) introduced Break-down theory in the Hindu
Marriage Act, 1955. Keeping the conservatism, the legislature did not enact divorce by
mutual consent, though the legislature did enact it as a basis of divorce a year earlier, in
the Special Marriage Act, 195455 which provides facility of a civil marriage between “any
two persons” belonging to any religion, community, domicile, or nationality. The Special
Marriage Act, 1954 was enacted for the sophisticated, educated and enlightened urban
class of gentlemen and ladies whereas the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 was enacted for the
Hindu masses who still cared for and nurtured Hindu Orthodoxy.56 But in 1976, it was
decided that it was safe to introduce divorce by mutual consent for Hindus too under
49
Section 7, MARRIAGE LAWS (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1976.
50
CLAUSES (III), (IV) AND (V), SECTION 13(1), THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955, before 1976 amendments.
51
We have borrowed it from the English Matrimonial Causes Act, 1973.
52
Section 13(1), HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955 before the amendments of 1964. Sub clause (viii) has
not resumed cohabitation for a space of two years or upwards after the passing of a decree fur
judicial separation against the party; or sub clause (ix) has failed to comply with a decree for
restitution of conjugal rights for a period of two years or upwards after the passing of the decree.
53
Section 27(2).
54
PROF. G.C.V. SUBBARAO, FAMILY LAW IN INDIA 205 (8th ed., 2005).
55
Section 34.
56
18
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.57 The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 grants special grounds of
divorce on which a wife alone can sue for divorce. The grounds are rape, sodomy or
bestiality of the husband58. The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976 has enacted 2
additional fault grounds for the wife.
Thus, Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 has introduced revolutionary
amendments to the shastric Hindu law. The Amendment of 1976 brought the modern
Hindu Law on the lines of other developed countries. However, there is a general feeling
that the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976, is primarily intended to bring about
liberalization of provisions relating to divorce and it has adversely affected the Hindu
society. The number of cases relating to matrimonial offenses has considerably increased
and now parties do not try for reconciliation because they can get divorce easily and in
shorter period. It is said that importance of Hindu marriage has been overlooked by
making provisions of divorce liberal. It is surely a tool for empowering the women of
India. She can now seek freedom from the sacred and eternal relationship, a privilege
which was unknown to the women pre-independence. As Bentham59 has beautifully
remarked:
"If there were a law which forbade the taking of a partner, a guardian, a manager, a
companion, except on the condition of always keeping him (or her), what tyranny, what
madness it would be called... To live under the perpetual authority of a man you hate, is
of itself a state of slavery, but to be compelled to submit to his (or her) embraces, is a
misfortune too great even for slavery itself."
Introducing divorce laws in the India, is indeed a progressive step taken for liberating the
women of our country. But “Divorce” is an alien concept, which does not belong to India
and is trying to fit in the traditionally and culturally rich society of India. But at the same
time, according to the conservative orthodox people of India, Divorce laws mock at the
thousands years old Dharamshastras and other texts of our country which advocate the
holy and pious concept of marriage. Although, in this modern era, we cannot separate
divorce laws from the social setup but one should try to analyze its social repercussions
57
Section 13B, THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955.
58
Section 13(2)(ii), THE HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955.
59
S.B. KITCHIN, A HISTORY OF DIVORCE 201 (2005).
19
on the society. So, the question arises: by reforming the divorce laws in India, are we
overlooking the calamity which divorce brings to the Indian society by threatening the
ancient traditional wealth of our nation? Divorce as a tool if over-used/ miss-used by the
modern couples of our country can prove fatal for the rich traditions and culture of India.
The various reform movements for the rights/upliftment of women in the Indian society
have been responsible for bringing changes in the old framework of marriage as practiced
from time immemorial. It is undoubtedly a step towards empowering the women of our
country but at the same time it has waived off the idealistic picture of a traditional Indian
woman that has been glorified in our ancient texts. Divorce per se has resulted in the
deterioration of the age-old concept of marriage being a sacrament. For ages, Indians,
especially Indian women have been known for their unmatched qualities of sacrifice,
tolerance, patience, etc but with the passing time, due to western influence various
reforms in the Hindu personal laws have faded these values which Indians used to
possess a century ago. A Hindu marriage is no more considered to be a sacrament, it is
losing its indissolubility characteristic.
As it has been experienced lately, Divorce has become an inevitable part of any modern
and progressive society. In this age of technological advancement when the man has
conquered nature, smashed the atom, fathomed the Ocean, explored the space and is on
the threshold of very secret of life, the earlier concept of sacramental marriage and its
indissolubility stands smashed. The modern political and social philosophy accelerated
by the urbanization of the modem industrial society has weakened the religious ties and
has created a crisis in the family law. Friedmannassigns the following reasons for the
contemporary changes in the family relations:
“Changes in the social philosophy which emphasize the freedom of individual as against
the mainly religiously determined indissolubility of the marriage status; the profound
transformation in the economic status of the family in the modern urbanized society, and
in particular, in the position of the married women; modern scientific and medical
developments which make birth control possible and have invented so many other
artificial sources for giving and controlling birth of a child, the growing claims of the
20
modern welfare state, which makes not only new demands, but also assumes far greater
responsibilities towards the family.”60
If we discuss about the Indian society, it is at a developing stage. It is a blend of ancient

traditional values of dharma practiced from time immemorial and a wave of westernized
culture which is now soaking into the behavioural pattern of Indian men and women.
Marriage between two persons is no more seen as a sacred and irrevocable vow. The
priorities of the people belonging to Indian society are changing, similarly there is a
drastic change in their lifestyles and attitudes of people. For example, the Joint Family
system in Indian urban society is at a verge of its extinction. The concept of nuclear
families has undoubtedly overcome the drawbacks of joint family system but at the same
time it is not free from flaws as it lead to the breakdown of the traditional social and
cultural form of Indian society.61 With these social and legal reforms in India post
independence, the relationship between a husband and wife has undergone a drastic
transformation. As stated by Savigny, law develops and progresses with time so one can
argue that divorce being a mode of partial or total dissolution of marriage, is
comparatively of recent origin and a tool for women empowerment. To sum up, one can
say recognition of Divorce in Hindu law can be compared to an instrument in the hands
of modern India, which if used for self defense can save the life of the spouses but if miss
used, it can miserably deteriorate the basic foundation of matrimonial love and
relationship.
60
W. FRIEDMANN, LAW IN THE CHANGING SOCIETY 237,238 (2nd ed. 1972)
61
Thomas, “T. Mathai, MODERNITY AND THE HINDU JOINT FAMILY SYSTEM”. International
Journal on World Peace 12.1 (1995): 3–9.
21
CHAPTER 3
CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE
3.1 MEANING OF CRUELTY
There is a voluminous case law around the legal concept of cruelty in both English and
Indian Jurisprudence. Although in India, cruelty is a ground for dissolution of marriage,
but no precise definition is given to the word ‘cruelty’ because “the acts or the conduct
constituting cruelty can be so numerous and varied that it would be impossible to fit them
into any watertight compartments”.1 No attempts were made by the English legislature as
well as the court to define cruelty. The English and Indian courts have emphasized that in
the backdrop of spousal relationship, acts or conduct constituting cruelty are infinitely
variable, and then in the ever changing and variable social context with increasing
complexities of modern life, no attempt at defining cruelty is likely to succeed. 2 The
Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce in its Report (1956) said, “We consider that
it is not proper to have a detailed definition, but to allow the concept of cruelty to remain
open to such adjustments as it is desirable to make through the media of judicial
decisions so as to accord with the changing social conditions.” The accepted legal
meaning of ‘cruelty’ both in England as well as in India is the expression as opined by
Lopes and Lindley jj in Russell v. Russell3. “Cruelty is generally described as conduct of
such a character as to have to caused danger to life, limb or health, bodily or mental, or as
to give rise to a reasonable apprehension of such danger”. In Osborn’s Concise Law
Dictionary, the definition of cruelty is same as that mentioned in the case Russell v
Russell4. The judges had further added, “it is not restricted to physical violence or
apprehension thereof”.
In Gollins v. Gollins5 Lord Pierce stated, “it is impossible to give a comprehensive

definition of cruelty, but when reprehensible conduct or departure from the normal
1
2
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 416,417 (5th ed.,2008).
3
(1897) AC 305.
4
(1897) AC 305.
5
(1963) 2 AII ER 966.
22
standards of conjugal kindness causes injury to health or an apprehension of it, it is, I
think cruelty if a reasonable person, after taking due account of the temperament and all
the other particular circumstances, would consider that the conduct complained of is such
that this spouse should not be called to endure it.” Thus, it is quite evident from the above
statements that very difficult to define cruelty under matrimonial laws as there is no
precise definition to the term “cruelty”.
Blacks Law Dictionary defines “cruelty” as the intentional and malicious infliction of
physical suffering upon living creatures particularly human beings or, as applied to the
latter, the wanton, malicious and unnecessary infliction of pain upon the body or the
feeling and emotions.
The definition given in Russell vs. Russell covers the basic elements of cruelty. It
includes both physical and mental cruelty. It emphasizes upon the necessity of protecting
the spouse and the belief that no act can amount to cruelty in law unless it has the effect
of producing actual or apprehended injury to the petitioner’s mental or physical health.6
But where there is no probability of injury, it will not be considered as an offence in the
eyes of law. Therefore, there is a difficulty in applying this test in cases where the
respondent’s act may not cause injury to any normal person, but it may be injurious to a
hypersensitive person.7 Lord Normand observed in Jamieson v. Jamieson8:
“The conduct must be judged upto a point by reference to the victim’s capacity for
endurance, insofar as that capacity is or ought to be nown to the other spouse…That
leaves it open to find, after evidence, that the petitioner was a victim of his or her own
abnormal hypersensitiveness and not of cruelty inflicted by the respondent.”
Lord Reid in Gollins v. Gollins9 stated, “No one has ever attempted to give a
comprehensive definition of cruelty and I do not intend try to do. Much must depend on
the knowledge and intention of the respondent, on the nature of his (her) conduct, and on
the character and physical or mental weakness of the spouses, and probably no general
statement is equally that the party seeking relief must show actual or probable injury to
6
7
8
(1952) AC 525.
9
(1963) 2 AII ER 966.
23
life, limb or health. It is easy to see that the origin of this requirement is the decision in
the well known case of Russell v. Russell.”
In Rayden on divorce it is observed:
“To obtain a divorce on the ground of cruelty it must be proved that one partner in the
marriage, however mindless of the consequences has behaved in a way which the other
spouse could not in the circumstances be called to endure and that misconduct has caused
injury to health or a reasonable apprehension of such injury. There are two sides to be
considered in a case of cruelty; from the petitioner’s side ought this petition to be called
on to endure the conduct: from the respondent’s side, was this conduct excusable?”10
D.Tolstoy in The Law and Practice of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes has said:
“Cruelty which is a ground for dissolution of marriage may be defined as willful and
unjustifiable conduct of such a character as to cause danger to life, limb or health bodily
or mental, or as to give rise to a reasonable apprehension of such a danger.”
The Legislature has intentionally avoided giving out a detailed definition of cruelty. 11
The words “treated the petitioner with cruelty” will obviously not include the normal
wear and tear of life. These words mean harsh conduct of such a nature and intensity as
would make it impossible for the petitioner to live with his (or her) spouse. It is for the
Courts to determine if a particular case amounts to cruelty or not.12
“Lord Denning in Mc Ewan v Mc Ewan 1964 108 Sol JO 198 (CA) stated: Cruelty being
a question of fact, the circumstances of each case must be taken into consideration,
including the physical and mental condition and the position in life of the parties.
However, the conduct complained of must be serious and higher than the ordinary wear
and tear of married life.”13
The concept of cruelty has varied from time to time, from place to place and from
individual to individual in its application to social status of the persons involved and the
10
SHIVANIGOSWAMI, Cruelty By Wife Against Her Husband, Divorce & Matrimonial Cases II, JS 7 (2009).
11
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 416 (5TH ed.,2008).
12
SHIVANIGOSWAMI, Cruelty By Wife Against Her Husband, Divorce & Matrimonial Cases II, JS 7, (2009).
13
ASHUTOSHMOOKERJEE, MOOKERJEE’SMARRUAGE SEPARATION AND DIVORCE 233 (2009).
24
economic conditions and other matters.14 There is no straight jacket formula or fixed
parameters for defining cruelty in a marriage.15Te cruelty must be of such a nature that
the parties cannot be reasonably be expected to live together. Whether a particular act is
cruelty or not will depend upon the facts and circumstances of each case. However, in
order to determine cruelty, two elements are to be proved- the act complained of and the
nature of its effect on the aggrieved spouse.16
The Supreme Court in Shobha Rani v. MadhulcarReddi17, observed, "There has been a
marked change in the life around us. In matrimonial duties and responsibilities in
particular, there is a sea change. They are of varying degrees from house to house, person
to person. A set of facts stigmatised as cruelty in one case may not be so in another case.
The cruelty alleged may largely depend upon the type of life the parties are accustomed
to or their economic and social conditions. It may depend upon their culture and human
values to which they attach importance".
Proof of intention (mensrea) or motive to be cruel is not necessary if the conduct

otherwise can be held to be cruelty.18 In Holden v. Holden19, the court observed:
“It is not necessary in determining this point to inquire from what motive such treatment
proceeds. It may be from turbulent passions, or sometimes from causes which are not
inconsistent with affection, and, are indeed often consistent with it, as the passion of
jealousy. If bitter waters are flowing, it is not necessary to enquire from what source they
spring.”
Thus, motive, malignity or malevolent intention has never been considered as a necessary
ingredient of cruelty.20 In P.L. Sayal v. Sarla21, where a wife with the intention of
14
JiallalAbrol v. Sarla Devi, AIR 1978 J&K 69: 1978 Kash LJ 273: 1978 Mat LR 298; Mary Browne v. A.N,
Brrowne, AIR 1937 Oudh 52; Nijhawan v. Nijhawan, AIR 1973 Del 200: (1973) 75 Punj LR (D) 168; A.v.B.,
(1997) II DMC 373 (Ker).
15
Anita @ SenaGoswami v. SourendraKantaGoswami, (2000) II DMC 126 (Cal-DB); Kailash Rani v. KimitLal,
(1997) 1 HLR 174 (P&H): (1996-3) Punj LR 536.
16
Sukumar Mukherjee v. Tripti Mukherjee, AIR 1992 Pat 32: (1991) 2 BLJR 1365.Relying on Shobha Rani v.
MadhukarReddi, AIR 1988 SC 121: (1988) 1 SCC 105; InduBalaToppo v. Francis Xavier Toppo, (2001) II DMC
631 (Del- FB).
17
AIR 1988 SC 121
18
Trimbak Narayan Bhagwat v. KamudiniBhagwat, AIR 1967 Bom 80: 67 Bom LR 837; see also JialalAbrol
v. Sarla Devi, AIR 1979 J&K 69: 1979 HLR 12 (J&K-FB) In P.L. Sayal v. Sarla Rani, AIR 1961 Punj 125.
19
(1810) 1 Hag Con 453.
20
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE (5TH ed.,2008).
21
AIR 1961 Punj 125: 63 Punj LR 377.
25
‘bringing peace and harmony in her conjugal life’ administered ‘love potion’ or vibhuti to
her husband which caused several health problems to him, the court held that the husband
who feared for his life and health if such things are repeated, could not be compelled to
live with his wife.22 Even though the wife’s act did not have the element of mensrea and
was well intended, yet since injury was caused by her act, it amounted to cruelty. In
Shobha Rani v. MadhukarReddi,23 the court unequivocally laid down that intention is not
a necessary ingredient in cruelty. The absence of intention should not make any
difference in the case if by the ordinary sense in human affairs the act complained of
could otherwise be regarded as cruelty. The relief cannot be denied to the party on the
ground that there has been no willful or deliberate ill-treatment.
The Apex Court in V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat24 stated: “If bitter waters are flowing, it is not
necessary to enquire from which source they spring... It is sufficient that if the cruelty is
of the type which indicates that the relations between the spouses had deteriorated to such
an extent due to the conduct of one or the other that it has become impossible for them to
live together without mental agony.”
The court in Jayachandra v. Anil Kaur25, held that the expression cruelty has not been
defined under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Cruelty has been used in context of human
behavior and conduct. It is the conduct in respect of matrimonial duties and obligations. It
is a conduct or course of one spouse which adversely affects the other. Cruelty may be
physical or mental. The question of mental cruelty should be considered in the light of
rules and norms of matrimonial relations of the particular society to which the couple
belongs, as well as their status, social values, traditions and environment in which they
reside. However, cruelty has to be separated from the ordinary wear and tear of the
matrimonial life.
Thus, there is no precise definition of cruelty. Cruelty is a changing concept and therefore
it is quite evident that its meaning has constantly been changed with the passage of time.
In this modern era, where the new generation has become self-centered and sensitive, the
22 th
Prof. Kusum Desai, INDIAN LAW OF Marriage & DIVORCE 672,673 (9 ed., 2014).
23
AIR 1988 SC 121: (1988) 1 SCC 105.
24
AIR 1994 SC 710: (1993) II DMC 568.
25
(2005) 2 SCC 22: AIR 2005 SC 534.
26
meaning of cruelty has widened to a great extent. As mentioned above, even
unintentional conduct of annoyance and irritation towards the spouse is covered under the
definition of cruelty. Thus, cruelty is not a static concept, it is constantly changing.
3.2 CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE
Cruelty as a ground of divorce has been provided in the following acts:
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955- Clause (ia) of section 13(1) of the Act provides cruelty as a
ground for a decree of divorce. It states that the other party-
has, after the solemnization of the marriage, treated the petitioner with cruelty.26
Special Marriage Act, 1954- “Clause relating to cruelty under the Act is identical with
the analogous clause of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.”27 Section 27(d) of the Act provides
that the respondent-
has, since the solemnization of marriage, treated the petitioner with cruelty.28
Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936- Clause (dd) of section 32 of the Act states-
that the defendant has since the solemnization of marriage treated the plaintiff with
cruelty or has believed in such a way as to render it in the judgment of the court improper
to compel the plaintiff to live with the defendant.29
There is another clause under the same section which is similar to physical cruelty.
Clause (e) of section 32 runs-
“that the defendant since the marriage voluntarily caused grevious hurt to the plaintiff or
has infected the plaintiff with venereal disease or, where the defendant is the husband,
has compelled the wife to submit herself to prostitution.”30
26
Section 13(1)(ia), HINDU MARRIAGE ACT, 1955.
27
28
Section 27(d), SPECIAL MARRIAGE ACT,1954.
29
Section 32(dd), PARSI MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ACT, 1936.
30
Section 32(e), PARSI MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ACT, 1936.
27
The proviso to the section give the court the discretion to pass a decree of dissolution of
marriage or judicial separation.
Indian Divorce Act, 1869- before the Indian Divorce (Amendment) Act, 2001 cruelty in
any form was not a ground of divorce for the husband. But husband’s cruelty coupled
with adultery was a ground of divorce for the wife. The amended Clause (x) of Section
10 of the Act runs:
has treated the petitioner with such cruelty as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the
mind of the petitioner that it would be harmful or injurious for the petitioner to live with
the respondent.31
The Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939- Section 2(viii) of the Act lays down
grounds for a decree for dissolution of marriage. It states that a woman married under
Muslim law shall be entitled to obtain a decree for the dissolution of her marriage…. that
the husband treats her with cruelty, that is to say, habitually assaults her or makes her life
miserable by cruelty of conduct even if such conduct does not amount to physical ill-
treatment, associates with women of evil repute or leads an infamous life, attempts to
force her to lead an immoral life, disposes of her property or prevents her exercising her
legal rights over it, obstructs her in the observance of her religious profession or practice,
or if he has more wives than one, does not treat her equitably in accordance with the
injunctions of the Quran 32
Thus, under Muslim law, the cruelty is exhaustively defined. Any act of the husband
beyond the above mentioned clauses will not be covered under cruelty. If one analyzes
cursorily at the above formulations of cruelty, it is evident that cruelty is a changing
concept.33 The old statutes, particularly under the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act,
1939 and the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936, emphasize in the formulation of
cruelty on physical cruelty, while the Indian Divorce Act, 1869 reflects the late 19th
century state of English matrimonial law of cruelty. 34 Whereas, on the other hand, the
Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, particularly after the
31
Section 10(x), INDIAN DIVORCE ACT, 1869.
32
Section 2(viii), THE DISSOLUTION OF MUSLIM MARRIAGE ACT, 1939.
33
34
PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 413 (5THed.,2008).
28
amendment of 1976, and the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 post 1988
amendment, depicts the modern concept of cruelty which includes physical as well as
mental cruelty.
One should be very conscious in interpreting cruelty as its connotation or understanding

has varied from society to society and from time to time with the change in economical
and social conditions and attitude of the people and it would continue to do so.35 As
cruelty in the modern scenario is not perceived as an offence and thus, there is not much
emphasis given on “intention to be cruel”.
3.3 CLASSIFICATION OF CRUELTY
Cruelty is generally classified under the following two heads-
(1) Physical Cruelty, and
(2) Mental Cruelty
3.3.1 Physical Cruelty

It includes the acts of physical violence of one spouse against the other, causing injury to
body, limb or health. “What acts of physical violence would amount to physical cruelty
would differ from case to case depending upon the susceptibility and sensitivity of the
parties.”36 A single act of physical violence may also amount to cruelty.37 At the same
time, a series of small acts of violence may cumulatively amount to cruelty. 38 Actual
danger of life is not required to be proved in physical cruelty.39 One or two acts of
physical violence are sufficient to constitute cruelty.40 Violent outburst of temper and
verbal abuse even though not accompanied by acts of physical violence would amount to
cruelty, if these acts impaired the health of the petitioner.41 Whereas under Dissolution of
35
36
37
Marry v. Raghvan, AIR 1979 MP 40.
38
DR.PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 413 (5th ed.,2008).
39
Kaushalya v. Mast Ram, AIR 1981 HP 63: 1981 HLR 442.
40
Laloo v. Bachi, AIR 1986 Raj 49; Rani Devi v. HusanLal, AIR 1988 P&H 65.
41
DR.PARASDIWAN, LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 427 (5th ed., 2008).
29
Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, "assault" simpliciter is not a ground for divorce. It must be
“habitual assault”, which in the context, would mean repeated acts of assault. It may be
that no single act of assault may amount to cruelty because of its mildness.42 But if these
acts are repeated and continued for a longer period, their accumulated impact on the
petitioner would amount to cruelty. In Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and Special Marriage
Act, 1954, “the number of painful acts is not relevant as cruelty does not depend upon the
number of such assaults but their nature and degree is relevant for deciding if the
respondent is guilty of cruelty”43. At times even a single act may be so injurious that it
may be held to be a cruel act and sometimes even a series of acts may not constitute
cruelty.44
The old statutes, particularly under the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939 and
the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936, emphasize in the formulation of cruelty on
physical cruelty.45 “Causing grievous hurt” under the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act,
1936 is a ground of divorce. Grievous hurt has been defined in Section 2(4) of the said
Act.
Under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and Special Marriage Act, 1954, unlike the Parsi and
Muslim matrimonial laws, there are no separate clauses under the section of divorce
which exclusively mention physical cruelty. But there are separate sections under Indian
Penal Code which defines criminal offences such as grievous hurt under Section 320 of
IPC and assault under Section 351 of IPC. The Courts have the complete authority to
interpret cruelty relying upon the facts and circumstances of each case.
It will be incorrect to say that only wives had been victims of physical cruelty in a
matrimonial relationship. There are instances where the husbands have suffered physical
cruelty and are subjected to victimization by their brutal wives. In Savitri v.
Mulchand46whenever the husband refused to do anything at the behest of the wife, the
son at the instance of the wife would grab the testicles of of the husband and squeeze
42
43
KalapalaBabuRao v. KalapalaAmmeji, (1991) I DMC 632 para 14 (AP-DB).
44
See also Sulekha v. Kamala Kanta, AIR 1980 Cal 370: (1980) 2 CLJ 82; Reeves v. Reeves, 3 S&t 139: 32 LJ
J&M 178; Basker v. Basker, (1949) p. 219: (1949) I All ER 247.
45
46
AIR 1987 Del 52: 1986 Mah LJ 438.
30
them resulting in immense physical pain and agony. In another case, Ashok Sharma v.
Santosh Sharma47,the wife used to pull the penis of her husband carelessly and
contemptuously on “inappropriate impulse” which resulted in “excessive pain” to the
husband. Similarly, an attempt to burn the husband by pouring kerosene oil on him is an
extreme instance of physical cruelty.48 The High Court found that a robust and heavy-
built quarrelsome wife beating not only mother-in-law and sister-in-law but also her
fragile looking husband would be covered under the acts of cruelty. 49Where the wife
gives merciless beating to her infant child and on being checked by her husband, bites
his fingers, her conduct amounts to cruelty.50
It might be true, keeping in view the social and traditional background of India that
physical cruelty is mostly meted out by husbands to their wives but the fact that there
may be genuine cases where husbands can be victims of physical cruelty as well.
3.3.2 Mental Cruelty
The concept of cruelty covers mental cruelty as well. 51 What would amount to mental
cruelty in matrimonial relations will depend upon the facts and circumstances of each
case.52 As stated by Lord Watson: ‘any definition would either be so wide as to be
nugatory, or too narrow to fit in the ever varying events of human life...such rudimentary
terms elude aprioric definition but can be illustrated, not defined.’ As very aptly stated by
J.D. Kapoor, J., in Kiran Robinson v. Ajeet Robinson53: “Infinite conduct come under the
scope of mental cruelty; no one dares to define it in a straight jacketed manner”.
“Mental cruelty broadly means, when either party causes mental pain, agony or suffering
of such a magnitude that it severs the bond between the husband and the wife and as a
result of which it becomes impossible for the party who has suffered to live with the other
party.”54
47
AIR 1987 Del 63.
48
Krishna Banerjee v. BhanuBikashBandyopadhyay, 2002 CWN 48 (Cal).
49
Rani Devi v. HussanLal AIR 1988 P&H 65.
50
Chandra V. Captain M.C. Pandey (1981) 2 DMC 1.
51
Debra Clare Seymour v. Pradeep Arnold Seymour, (2002) II DMC 144 (Del).
52 TH
PROF. KUSUM DESAI, INDIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 675 (9 ed., 2014).
53
II (2002) DMC 462 at 464 (Del).
54
S. HanumanthaRao v. S. Ramani, AIR 1999 SC 1318: (1999) 3 SCC 620: (1999) 1 DMC 628 para 8 (SC).
31
In a case, the wife falsely alleged her husband of having extra-marital affair and illicit
relationship. It was held by the court that these accusations constitute mental cruelty of
such an intensity that the husband cannot be reasonably expected to live with his wife.
The husband was entitled to a decree of divorce.55
In Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, the apex court stated that earlier it was thought that
actual physical injury or reasonable apprehension of it was the prime element of cruelty.
But, in this modern era, this doctrine is repudiated. The modern view is that mental
cruelty can cause even more grievous injury and thus, create in the mind of the injured
spouse reasonable apprehension that it will be unsafe or injurious to live with his or her
spouse.56 The alleged acts of cruelty by the wife were, inter alia, her non-cooperation in
conjugal relations as a result of which the marriage was not even consummated, rude and
abusive behavior by her in the presence of elderly people and others, police complaints
against husband and his family, making false complaints and accusations that she was
pregnant and suffered a miscarriage, etc.57 The cumulative effect of all these acts
amounted to mental cruelty by the court so as to entitle him to relief. The court observed:
“Mental cruelty is a state of mind and feeling with one of the spouses due to the behavior
pattern by the other… feeling of anguish disappointment and frustration in one spouse
caused by the conduct of the other can only be appreciated on assessing the attending
facts and circumstances taken cumulatively.”
Sometimes, even gesture, an angry look, a sugar coated joke, an ironic look may be more
cruel than beating.58 Mental cruelty has more devastating effects than the acts of physical
violence.59 Traces of physical cruelty may be apparent but those of mental cruelty are
abstract and cannot be seen or felt at most of the times.60 Therefore, in all cases of mental
cruelty it is not necessary to prove injury to health.61 In a case, the wife was having an
55
SadhanaSrivastava v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, AIR 2006 All 7.
56
AIR 2002 SC 2582, 2588: (2002) 5 SCC 706: (2000) II DMC 205, paras 18, 20 (SC); ParimiMeherSeshu
v.ParimiNageswaraSastry, (1994) I DMC 417: AIR 1994 AP 92 (DB); Nalini Sunder v. G.V. Sunder, (2003) 1
DMC 254 (Kant-DB).
57 th
PROF. KUSUM DESAI, INDIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 676 (9 ed.,2014)
58
Lallo v. Bachi, AIR 1986 Raj 49: (1985) 2 DMC 23;
59
SurabhiAgrawal v. Sanjay Agrawal, (200) 1 DMC 453 (MP-DB): (2000) 2 HLR 52 (MP-DB).
60
Lokeshwari v. SrinivasaRao, AIR 2000 AP 451: (2000) 2 HLR 337 (AP-DB): (2000) II DMC 351 (AP-DB).
61
NareshPurohit (Dr.) v. Dr. P.K. Shobhana, AIR 1999 MP 108.
32
extra-marital sexual relationship. She administered sleeping pills to her husband. The
husband apprehended that the wife was slowly poisoning him in order to seize his
property. It was held by the court that the wife treated him with cruelty. 62 In another case,
the husband loved and lived with his wife for several years without bothering the fact that
she was not capable of giving birth to a child (a fact which is quite relevant in an Indian
set-up). On the other hand, the wife was found having sexual relationship with another
man. The court held that this amounted to cruelty to the husband.63
In the case of V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat, the Supreme Court observed:
“Mental cruelty in can broadly be defined as that conduct which inflicts upon the other
party such mental pain and suffering as would make it not possible for that party to live
with the other. In other words, mental cruelty must be of such a nature that the parties
cannot reasonably be expected to live together. The situation must be such that the
wronged party cannot reasonably be asked to put up with such conduct and continue to
live with the other party. It is not necessary to prove that the mental cruelty is such as to
cause injury to the health of the petitioner. While arriving at such conclusion, regard must
be had to the social status, educational level of the parties, the society they move in, the
possibility or otherwise of the parties ever living together in case they are already living
apart and all other relevant facts and circumstances which it is neither possible nor
desirable to set out exhaustively. What is cruelty in one case may not amount to cruelty in
another case. It is a matter to be determined in each case having regard to the facts and
circumstances of that case. If it is a case of accusations and allegations, regard must also
be had to the context in which they were made.”
The following are the instances where the Court held the spouse guilty of marital cruelty
to the other partner: Where the wife attempted to commit suicide and later on lodged a
false complaint against her husband resulting in prosecution amounted to cruelty,64 or
where wife’s having undesirable/illicit relations with some other person and refusal to
discontinue such relations and also threatening the husband to put an end to his life.65
62
Amita v. A.K. Rathore, AIR 1999 MP 218: (2000) 1 HLR 588 (MP).
63
Velayudhan v. Chandrika, (2003) 2 KLT 310 (Ker-DB).
64
RajinderKumari v. DaryodhanLal, 1980 HLR 301: 1980 MLR 87 (P&H).
65
Mohinder Singh Virdi v. MalkiatKaur, 1978 HLR 699 (P&H).
33
Similarly, instances of marital infidelity of the wife as well as refusal by her to do house
works are also covered under mental cruelty.66 In a case where wife making of false and
constant charge of bigamy against her husband amounted to cruelty to the husband. 67 In
the same way making of reckless and false allegations against the character of her
husband and members of his family in open court so as to injure his reputation is held by
the Courts as a cruel act. This could be in a reply to a notice by the other party or in a
written statement.68
In ManishaTyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, repeated abuses, taunts, rebukes, curses,

nagging and compulsions for apologizing needlessly was held by the Court as cruelty.69
Similarly, wife’s asking the husband to separate himself from his family and not only this
using abusive language for husband and other members of the family was held to be
mental cruelty.70 Humiliation in a public place or in the presence of one’s colleagues or
friends unnecessarily,71 making a false complaint to the superior of the husband that he
ill-treated her which lowered the reputation of the husband in the eyes of his employer
and affected his career and promotional opportunities,72 physically pulling her mother-in-
law out of the house,73tutoring the children against their father,74 causing injury to her
own children, husband’s parents, brother-in-law, etc75 are all covered under mental
cruelty.
Neglect of and apathy unto the spouse when the husband is hospitalized or seriously ill, 76
refusal to take medical treatment and medical test as advised by the doctor,77 taking a
66
BarnaliSen (nee Dasgupta) v. DebasishSen, (2002) 1 HLR 192 (Cal DB).
67
Shingara Singh v. SukhwinderKaur, 1980 HLR 644 (P&H).
68
Madhu Rani v. TarsenLalVerma, 1980 HLR 710 (P&H).
69
ManishaTyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, (2007) 1 HLR 297 (P&H DB).
70
ManishaJha v. KunalKantiJha, (1998) 1 HLR 518 (Cal).
71
Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, (2002) 5 SCC 706; ManishaTyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, (2007) 1 HLR
297 (P&H DB).
72
PranatiChatterjee v. ShriGautam, (2006) 2 HLR 21 (Cal DB).
73
JaiprakashDattatrayPatade v. UshaJaiprakashPatade, (2005) 1 HLR 172 (Bom DB); SadhanaSrivastava v.
Arvind Kumar Srivastava, (2006) 1 HLR 148 (All DB).
74
JaiprakashDattatrayPatade v. UshaJaiprakashPatade, (2005) 1 HLR 172 (Bom DB).
75
Gurcharan Singh v. SukhdevKaur, AIR 1979 P&H 98: 1979 HLR 155: 1979 MLR 271. The wife left the
matrimonial home for her parent’s house leaving behind a two months old child and refused not to come
back to the husband but also to keep the child as a result the child died.
76
Rajinder Singh Joon v. Tara Wati, AIR 1980 Del 213: 1980 MLR 102 (Del): ILR (1980) 1 Del 381: 980 HLR
534.
34
false plea that she had conceived but unfortunately there was a miscarriage 78 were held
by the courts as grounds of mental cruelty. There is a new type of mental cruelty done by
the wife against her husband and in-laws where the wife makes false complaint to the
police which results in loss of reputation and prestige of the husband and his family in the
society,79 in the same way lodging of a false FIR for criminal offences under Sections
107,151 of CrPC or 498-A, 323 and 506 of IPC and dowry demand80 and filling a number
of FIRs and getting a number of cases registered, filling complaints before the Women’s
Cell and Company Law Board, opposing bail application and giving an advertisement in
the newspaper that the husband is only an employee of the wife are held to be mental
cruelty towards the other spouse81
False allegations made by the wife of mental disorder or schizophrenia, fourteen years
after marriage and supplying false news with the intention to disturb the husband, 82 the
wife writing a letter to a third person who is an outsider to marriage (brother of the
husband) that the husband is impotent,83 charge made by the wife and her parents without
medical evidences that the husband is suffering from erectile dysfunction i.e. inability to
perform sexual intercourse,84 making false allegations of molestation against her old and
infirm father-in-law85are grounds of mental cruelty.
Withdrawing from her matrimonial home and leaving behind minor daughters to the care
and custody of her husband knowing fully well that he has to be on night duty
sometimes,86 undergoing family planning operation without the consent of the husband87,
voluntary abortion by the wife without the consent of her husband, 88 non-intimation to
77
Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, (2002) 5 SCC 706.
78
Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, (2002) 5 SCC 706.
79
G.V.N. KameswaraRao v. G. Jabilli, (2002) 2 SCC 296; RajinderBhrdwaj v. Anita Sharma, (1993) 1 HLR 388
Del.
80
Rakesh Sharma v. Surabhi Sharma, (2003) 2 HLR 161 (Raj); Rajni v. Sanjay Kumar, (2003) 1 HLR 580 (MP);
NirmalaBhandari v. Mangal Singh Bhandari, (2006) 2 HLR 541 (Uttaranchal).
81
Naveen Kohli v. NeeluKohli, (2006) 4 SCC 558.
82
J. SudhakarShenoy v. VrindaShenoy, (2001) @ HLR 416 (Kant DB).
83
G. Padmini v. G. SrivanandaBabu, (2000) 2 HLR 99 (AP DB).
84
SusarlaSubramanyaSastry v. S. Padmakshi, (2005) 2 HLR 709 (AP DB).
85
ManishaTyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, (2007) 1 HLR 297 (P&H DB).
86
DalbirKaur v. Daljit Singh, (1996) 2 HLR 644 (P&H).
87
BalbirKaur v. Gurdev Singh, (2000) 1 HLR 316 (P&H).
88
Lakshmi Shanmugham v. P.R. Shanmugham, (1995) 2 HLR 685 (Mad).
35
the husband about the illness and death of their child,89 birth of an illegitimate child
where the husband did not visit the wife for more than a year as he was on his duty in the
Army,90 are all grounds of mental cruelty. Beating of the husband by the father and
brother of the wife in her presence and her failure to rescue her husband91 is a case of
both mental and physical cruelty.
Thus, after discussing the instances of mental cruelty, it is quite evident that mental
cruelty has a very wide dimension. The Courts after looking into the facts and
circumstances of each case decide whether an act or a series of act would be covered
under the roof of mental cruelty or not. Mental cruelty being having a broad framework
varies from person to person, society to society and time to time.
3.4 CRUELTY UNDER OTHER INDIAN LEGAL PROVISIONS
3.4.1 Concept of Matrimonial Cruelty in Penal Code
The Criminal law Amendment Act, 1983 inserted section 498A (Chapter XX-A) relating
to cruelty by husband or relatives of husbands to combat social evil of dowry and
matrimonial atrocities against married women.92 Section 498A of Indian Penal Code,
1860 is a cognizable and non-bailable offence and reads as follows:
“Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such
woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to
three years and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation- For the purpose of this section, "cruelty" means-
(a) any willful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive the woman to
commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental
or physical) of the woman; or
89
Jyotsna Mukherjee v. Sri Utpalmukherjee, (1999) 2 HLR 43 (Cal DB).
90
Vinod Kumar Rai v. Manjurai, (2007) 1 HLR 433 (All).
91
Surinder Singh v. TejinderKaur, (1987) 1 HLR 86 (Del).
92
Act 46 of 1983.
36
(b) harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing her or
any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any property or valuable
security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such
demand.”93
There are several provisions in penal law relating to offences of matrimonial nature. A
married woman is subjected to cruelty under Indian Penal Code, 1860 by her husband or
his relatives (498A) or by same husband and his relatives in demands of dowry preceding
unnatural death within seven years of marriage (304B) or causing woman’s death (302)
amounting to murder.94
3.4.2 Cruelty Under The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 defines “Domestic
Violence” for the first time in Indian law. “It is a comprehensive definition and captures
women’s experience of abuse and includes not only physical violence but also other
forms of violence such as emotional / verbal, sexual, and economic abuse.”95 It is based
on definitions in international law such as the UN Declaration on Violence Against
Women and a Model Code. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005
is a civil law and is directed towards providing reliefs to the woman who faces violence
at home. The Act does not make any changes in the existing personal law regime on
family matters. “The reliefs under the Act are in addition to existing laws and have been
recognized with the objective of empowering a woman to tide over an emergency
situation. Having obtained relief under the law, a woman can still go for relief under
other laws later.”96 Section 3 of the Act defines violence at a great length. It is submitted
that all violence is cruelty. Therefore, the acts which are defined as violence, may be
rightly accepted as the acts of cruelty.97
93
Section 498A of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
94
K.D. GOUR, A TEXTBOOK ON THE INDIAN PENAL CODE 714 (2001).
95
Annex 4: Overview of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 220 available at
http://www.icrw.org/files/images/Reducing-HIV-Stigma-and-Gender-Based-Violence-Toolkit-for-Health-
Care-Providers-in-India-Annex-4.pdf
96
Annex 4: Overview of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 221 available
athttp://www.icrw.org/files/images/Reducing-HIV-Stigma-and-Gender-Based-Violence-Toolkit-for-
Health-Care-Providers-in-India-Annex-4.pdf
97
N.KUMAR, HINDU LAW AS JUDICIALLY SCANNED 1956-2009 207,208 (2009).
37
From the above discussion one can see that the concept of cruelty in India has changed to
a great extent in the last three decades. Prior to Marriage Law (Amendment) Act, 1976,
cruelty was not recognized by the Indian legislature as a ground of divorce under the
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special. Marriage Act, 1954. It was merely a ground
for Judicial Separation. It was only after the 1976 Amendment that cruelty was
introduced as a ground of divorce under the above mentioned Acts. In the same way prior
to Indian Divorce (Amendment) Act, 2001, under the Indian Divorce Act, 1869 a
husband could not seek divorce under the ground of cruelty. It was only for wife, who
could seek divorce on the grounds of cruelty coupled with adultery. It was a ground for
judicial separation. Although the old statutes under Parsi and Muslim matrimonial laws
recognized cruelty as a ground of divorce but these matrimonial laws were confined to
physical cruelty. Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 post 1988 amendment, depicts
the modern concept of cruelty which includes physical as well as mental cruelty.
Indian society is changing at a rapid pace and so are the domestic laws. With the trans-
boundary movements of ideas, cultures and traditions, the Indian society (as it has been
discussed earlier: since ages, India has been accepting the variety of cultures, traditions
and practices of various foreign societies and blending them with their own culture and
practices thus giving it a unique flavour) is progressing in the fields of education,
infrastructure, employment, women empowerment. Thus, one may infer that there is a
drastic change in the thought process of the people of this country. With the emergence of
globalization and liberalization, the India society is at a platform where the traditional
bondage is fading away and new ideas and practices are taking birth, such as: nuclear
families, compulsory education, equal rights for women. With the fast changing India, the
legal system is bound to keep its pace at par with the transforming Indian society. Well,
this is the best characteristic of a Common law system, where the law is not rigid but
quite flexible in practice. Thus, the law can be molded or framed according to the need of
the hour. The Courts have the authority to interpret the law according the given facts and
circumstances of the case.
As discussed above, cruelty as a concept is neither defined by the legislature nor by the
Courts. Thus, a common trend has been observed lately, where a new concept of mental
38
98
cruelty has been recognized by the Courts of India. Cruelty is broadly defined as “a
conduct of such a character as to have to caused danger to life, limb or health, bodily or
mental, or as to give rise to a reasonable apprehension of such danger”. Thus, if we talk
about urban India, it is observed that most of the cases filed for divorce are on the
grounds of mental cruelty. With the developing economy, improved standard of living,
education and employment opportunities, the people are becoming mentally and
emotionally sensitive and self-centered. Intolerance among the young urban population of
our country is increasing to a great extent. They are more concerned about their rights
guaranteed to them by our Constitution than their duties and obligations towards others.
The family bonds and marital ties are losing their importance. With the recognition of
cruelty as a ground of divorce, the new generation has got an instument in their hands to
end the sacred marital bonds over petty and trivial issues. The usual wear and tear of
matrimonial relationship is exaggerated to such an extent that their marital relation
reaches the doors of the Courts and is grievously injured to the point of death by our
adversarial legal system.
To add on, there is a common presumption among the people in India that in most of the
cases of cruelty, husbands are always on the torturing side and the poor wives are the
victims to their brutality. Indeed the above scenario cannot be negated. And for the very
same purpose, various civil and penal acts and provisions have been formulated and
introduced by our legislature for protecting the vulnerable class of women from such
hostility. But as every personality has two sides to it -white and black, in the same way
the fact cannot be overlooked that there have been instances where the husbands had
fallen prey to malicious intents of their wives. In almost all the cases of cruelty, it is
assumed by the police, Women cells, pro-women NGOs, that the wife is a victim to the
atrocities of her husbands and in-laws. She is compared to Draupadi who was humiliated
and insulted by her relatives (men) in the presence of hundreds of people. But in this 21st
century, it would not be completely fair to compare an educated urban lady to Draupadi.
The Indian Constitution and the Indian legislature have made numerous laws for
protecting the rights of the women and for empowering the vulnerable class of women.
But the irony is, the benefit of such legislations is not reaching to those helpless and
98
Russell vs. Russell (1897) AC 305.
39
vulnerable women who need it the most. On the contrary, these women empowering laws
have turned out to be a tool in the hands of a handful educated urban women who use
these laws against their husbands and his family for her advantage and make them suffer
in order to quench her greedy thirst of revenge. Mental cruelty is worse than physical
cruelty. It leaves a permanent emotional and mental scar on the aggrieved husbands and
his family which could not be healed by any medicine or ointment. In order to meet their
selfish motives, these handful urban women make their husbands go through hell. It has
been commonly observed that in addition to the constant quarrels, insults, nagging,
abuses, rebukes, these wives go a step ahead in filing false civil and criminal complaints
against their husbands and their families. At times the husband and his old parents have
to stay at the police station for hours and hours, thus causing mental agony and anguish to
them. In the last 20 years, there has been an increase in cases of mental cruelty done by
wives to their husbands. At the same time, it has been observed that most of the wives
who torture their husbands by misusing the various provisions of women empowering
laws belong to a urban set-up. The same has been discussed by the researcher in the next
chapter.
40
CHAPTER 4
CRUELTY TO HUSBANDS
4.1 CRUELTY TO HUSBANDS BY WIVES
In this chapter the researcher has tried to look at cruelty through the lense of men
(husbands). The Indian society is to yet to accept the basic fact that even husbands can
fall prey to harassment and torture in the hands of their wives. The Indian urban society is
stuck between the traditional joint family set-up and the (western influenced) nuclear
family system. In the Indian society, especially where there are joint families, cruelty
meted out by the wife to her in-laws is directly proportional to cruelty done to her
husband. With the women becoming educated and financially independent, an acute
change in the attitude of women is clearly visible. Indeed the change is for good. But it is
not very easy to uproot the thousands of ages old orthodox practices, beliefs and
traditions from the minds of the people. Thus, two extreme cases are can be observed in
this traditionally confused era through which India is going. The first case is: where
nothing has changed, the women are tortured, brutally assaulted by men and are denied
the privilege of healthy sanitation, food and education. On the other side, (although very
less in number), there are women who are well-educated, liberal, pacing ahead, leaving
behind men in different fields of life, who are financially and emotionally independent.
Therefore at this juncture, in this fast changing society, looking at cruelty only from the
point of view of women would be unfair. There are innumerous cases which can be
referred where dominant wives had acted with cruelty of such a nature that the Courts
had granted decrees of divorce to the aggrieved husbands on the grounds of cruelty. It
seems as if a duty is imposed on some handful women of modern India by her past sisters
of old India to take revenge from the male fraternity for the brutality and torture they had
shown to them in the past centuries. Some of the instances where the wives have done
cruelty to their husbands and his family members are illustrated as under:
Cruelty to husbands is not a new scenario of 21st century. There have been many
incidents even in the 1970s and 80s where the innocent husband and his family members
41
have been victimized by the abusive, torturous wife.N. Sreepadachar v. VasanthaBai 1,
Dastane v. Dastane2 and Harbhajan Singh v. Amarjeet3 are landmark cases of 1970s and
80s which illustrates that how far a wife can go to cause mental torture and agony to the
husband and harass him ghastly. The case of N. Sreepada Chandra v.
Vasanthaprovides a very good illustration of mental cruelty. “It was found by the court
that the insulting conduct indulged in by the respondent in the public against her husband,
would undoubtedly, cause mental agony and pain and prove harmful and injurious to the
health of her husband. Abusing the husband `n public in a bus and catching hold of his
collar, making the husband cook food for her and when he served the food, throwing the
plate on his head on the ground that the food was not properly cooked and insisting on his
asking her forgiveness, threatening to burn herself and to give a false complaint to the
police so that her husband may come to trouble; when he was starting to the office with
his colleague, catching, hold of his neck and preventing him from taking the instruments
used for his work, stating before others that her husband may be killed in an accident so
that she may get his insurance and provident fund amounts. All these would make
impossible for a husband to live with his wife. The court was right to declare it as a case
of mental cruelty.”4In Dastane v. Dastane, the wife enjoyed causing misery to her
husband and his family members, she willingly suffered the calculated insults which her
relatives hurled at her husband and his parents. She not merely insulted and abused her
husband and her father-in-law but made false accusations. She would hurl at her husband
abuses like these: "I want to see the ruination of the whole Dastane dynasty", "burn the
books written by your father and smear the ashes on your forehead", "you are not a man,
you are a monster in human body". She tore her Mangal Sutra on two occasions. She
would lock out the husband when he would return from his office in the evening. She
used to thrash her child mercilessly, even when the child was in high fever, and she
rubbed chilly powder on the tongue of her child. She would abuse her husband in most
filty language and would constantly threaten him that she would commit suicide and
would implicate him and his family members in criminal cases; and shedid many other
1
AIR 1970 Mys 232.
2
AIR 1975 SC 1534: (1975) 2 SCC 326.
3
AIR 1986 Raj 13: (1985) 2 DMC 85.
4
42
evil pranks like this. The Supreme Court opined that such conduct; on part of wife would
amounted to cruelty.
In Harbhajan Singh v. Amarjeet, the Vanasthali educated graduate wife not merely
refused to do household work, but also, in the presence of guests, forced her husband to
clean the dining table and utensils. She even slapped the husband. She would abuse him
in most abusive language and would constantly threatened him that she would commit
suicide and would implicate him and his family members in criminal cases. She went to
the extent of leveling false charges of embezzlement against her husband to the bank
authorities, where he was employed, thus endangering his employment.
In another landmark case, V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat,5 the wife alleged in her written
statement (defense) that the husband (petitioner) had lost his normal mental health, in
other words her husband was a mental patient requiring expert psychological treatment as
he was suffering from paranoid disorder and mental hallucinations. She further stated that
he and all the members of his family are a bunch of lunatics. The court held that the
husband is a practicing advocate and such allegations made by his wife are bound to
cause him intense mental agony and sufferance and will also affect his career and
profession prospects. Thus, the wife was held guilty of cruelty.
In Manish SandeepGade v. SandeepVinayakGade,6 the wife made baseless allegations of

illicit relation of her husband with a married woman and further made false allegations of
father-in-law’s indecent approaches, etc in her written statement as a defense. The court
held that her written statement amounted to cruelty.
A wife persistently made derogatory, disparaging and ugly remarks against husband and
his close relations about their character and presented the same in her written statement
and also in her deposition. She further made false allegations against her husband about
his illicit sexual relations and sexual perversity and bestiality. These false allegations
amounted to mental cruelty to the husband.7 In Archana Bag v. Madan Mohan Bag,8 the
wife started quarrelling with her husband on the very first day of her marriage. She left
5
(1993) II DMC 568: (1994) 1 SCC 337 : (1994) 1 HLR 74.
6
AIR 2005 Bom 180 at 193;
7
Santana Banerjee v. SchindraNath Banerjee, AIR 1990 Cal 367: (1990) 1 HLR 419 (Cal).
8
(2001) 1 CHN 16 (Cal-DB).
43
the matrimonial home immediately and returned after two months. A criminal case had to
be instituted because of her objectionable association with some young men of the
locality. Thus, she became a continuous source of irritation for the husband and his
family. Such acts amounted to cruelty to the husband.
In P. Natrajan v. Thamizmani, (2002) II DMC 618 (Mad), “the court held that the wife
caused mental cruelty to her husband as she arrogated affluent financial status of her
parents, found it impossible to eat the quality of food in her husband’s house.”9 Thus, she
used to get food from her parent’s home and deliberately hurt and insulted her husband
and her in-laws on their inferior financial status.
In G.V.N. KameswaraRao v. G. Jabilli,10 the husband was a highly educated man holding
high position in U.S.A. the wife joined him after their marriage. Her behavior towards
him was very bad. According to the husband, she was quarrelsome, always humiliating
and insulting him and creating issues. She also filed criminal cases against him and his
mother, though no prima facia case was made out against them, they were detained in the
police station for more than ten hours and suffered a lot of harassment. The court held
that the mental cruelty faced by the husband is to be assessed having regard to his status
in life, educational background and the environment in which he lived. In this case,
according to the court, considering their status in life and the social circumstances, the
humiliation and agony suffered by him was too much and so a decree of divorce was
granted by the court.
Where the wife suffered from Kleptomania and stole money of her husband’s friends,
lowered her husband’s prestige who was an officer at Durgapur steel Plant. The court
held that this would amount to mental cruelty to the husband.11
Prior to 1988, section 34 of the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act explicitly included
cruelty to children as a matrimonial cruelty.12 But this has been struck down now.
Beating the child by the wife amounts to mental cruelty to husband. 13 Conviction of the
9 th
PROF. KUSUM DESAI, INDIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 678 (9 ed.,2014).
10
AIR 2002 SC 576.
11
Krishna Banerjee v. BhannBikashBandyopadhyay, 2002 CWN 48 (Cal).
12 th
PROF. KUSUM DESAI, INDIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 682, (9 ed.,2014).
13
ParimiMeherSeshu v. ParimiNageswaraSastry, (1994) I DMC 417: AIR 1994 AP 92 (DB).
44
wife for murdering her mother-in-law amounts to cruelty to her husband.14 In another
case, the wife committed the wicked crime of throwing the minor children into a well and
as a result the children died. Not only this, after the commission of the crime, she went on
a tour. It was held that her act amounted to mental cruelty to the husband i.e. the father of
the children.15 In the case, P.K. Vijayappan Nair v. J. AmminiAmma16, a widower who
already had three children remarried and his new wife’s conduct with the children was
very bad and she also filed civil and criminal cases against them, it was held as a case of
cruelty against the husband.
The modern views allow no discrimination between husband and wife in judging what
cruelty is.17 The standard by which legal cruelty on the part of either spouse has to be
judged is not different. In the modern scenario, the courts should keep in mind that the
new legislations have raised the social status of women of India. Therefore, “while
determining what would really amount to cruelty, the court recognizes that the rules of
social behavior regarding the status of women in Indian society are changing”18.
If the wife intentionally and continuously refuses to satisfy the husband’s natural and
legitimate craving of having a child, the deprivation reduces him to despair and it
naturally affects his mental health. The termination of pregnancy twice by the wife in
spite of insistence by the husband and his family to have a child amounts to cruelty. 19
Where the wife deliberately aborted the foetus in her very first pregnancy without her
husband’s consent would amount to cruelty.20 Similarly, where a career oriented wife got
her pregnancy terminated three times thereby depriving her husband and his family of the
joy of parenthood was held to cause mental cruelty to the husband.21 False plea of
conceiving and miscarriage would also constitute mental cruelty.22
14
Jhabbarmal v. Guddi @ Kamala, (2002) II DMC 39 Raj.
15
Mohanan v. Thankamani, (1995) 1 DMC 327: (1994) 2 KLT 677 (Ker-DB); Gurucharan Singh v.
SukhdevKaur, AIR 1979 P&H 98, the wife left her two month old child and went to her parents place.
When approached by the husband she refused to return to the husband and also to keep her child. As a
result the child died.
16
AIR 1997 Ker 170.
17 th
PROF. KUSUM DESAI, INDIAN LAW OF MARRIAGE & DIVORCE 684, (9 ed.,2014).
18
Sanker Prasad Pal v. Sabita Pal, 97 CWN 747 (Cal-DB); VibhaSrivastava v. Dinesh Kumar Srivastava, AIR
1919 346: (1992) WLR 504 (MP).
19
Satya v. Siri Ram, AIR 1983 P&H 252: 1983 HLR 117 (P&H).
20
Sushil Kumar Verma v. Usha, AIR 1987 Del 86: (1986) 2 HLR 104 (Del).
21
SumanKapur v. SudhirKapur, AIR 2009 SC 589.
22
Praveen Mehta v. Inderjit Mehta, AIR 2002 SC 2582: (2002) 5 SCC 706: (2002) II DMC 205 SC.
45
The wife used to quarrel with the husband and his family. She insisted on and compelled
living separately from his parents by threatening to commit suicide. She also used to
leave the house and return at night and was not ready to tell where she had gone. Apart
from this, she also made a false allegation against her husband of demanding dowry. The
court held that she was guilty of cruelty.23 In Ramesh Jangid v. Sunita,24 a wife’s demand
that her husband should leave his parents and siblings to reside with her parents and on
refusal, her becoming abusive was held to constitute cruelty.
The wife, a government servant made complaint to the Prime Minister about her husband,
a Government servant containing allegations of demand for dowry, demand for certain
amount for his sister’s marriage and of beating while turning her out of the house. In a
departmental enquiry into the complaint, allegations were not proved. The wife was held
guilty of mental cruelty to the husband.25 The wife made reckless, irresponsible and wild
allegations against her husband about his having black money, to his higher authorities
for which enquiry was held against him. A case was registered by her father against him
under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code. She accused that her husband will kill her
and in the meantime, she flirted with other men. The court held that the wife caused
mental cruelty to the husband.26 The wife made false complaint to the police, threw
chappals at the husband in the hotel, attempted once to throw the child on the road. In the
instant case, the court held that she was guilty of cruelty. 27 Where the wife refused to
cook food and insulted the husband in the presence of relatives and friends, she was held
to be guilty of cruelty.28
23
Rajni v. Sanjay Kumar, (2002) II DMC 457 (MP); Rama Kanta v. MohinderLaxmidasBhandula, AIR 1996
P&H 98: (1995) 2 HLR 315 (P&H) ( the wife threatened to commit suicide and lodged a false complaint
against her husband and his relatives under sections 498-A/34 of the Indian Penal Code which ended in
acquittal.)
24
AIR 2007 Raj 160.
25
M. K. Malhotra v. KritiMalhotra, AIR 1987 Del 266: (1987) 1 HLR 199 (Del); Rakesh Sharma v. Surabhi
Sharma, AIR 2002 Raj 138: (2002) 1 DMC 666 (Raj-DB).
26
Kalpana Jain v. Shiv Kumar Jain, (2003) II DMC 828 (MP).
27
Lokeshwari v. SinivasanRao, AIR 2000 AP 456: (2000) 2 HLR 337 (AP): (2000) II DMC 351 (AP-DB);
Vijayappa Nair v. AmminiAmma, (1997) 1 DMC 648: (1997) 1 KLT 381 (Ker-DB). The wife filed false civil
and criminal cases one after another with the intent to harass her husband.
28
Rukmani Devi v. Badri Narayan, (2002) 1 DMC 552 (Raj DB); Parag Mittal v. Vikita Mittal, AIR 2000 Del
304.
46
In Bhagwanti v. LaxmandasPanjwani, the wife would use filthy language for her husband
and his family members, abuse them, beat him and refused to do even the normal
household chores. She lodged reports with the police resulting in his arrest. On account of
constant harassment, the husband had to change the place of residence. He even thought
of committing suicide. The court held that the wife was guilty of cruelty. 29 The husband
was provided job by the relatives of wife was pressurized to live separately from joint
family. He was also physically assaulted and transferred from one place to another by
relatives of the wife and was subsequently forced to resignation. It was held that such acts
of the wife and her relatives amounted to cruelty.30 Where the wife refused to prepare tea
for the husband’s friends and lodged false reports of non-bailable offences against the
husband and his relations and got rid of pregnancy without the consent of the husband, it
was held that she was guilty of cruelty.31 An army officer’s wife in her letter to husband’s
superior complained about her husband’s involvement with another woman for three
years and asked for husband’s transfer to high altitude field area. The wife was guilty of
cruelty.32 The wife of a judicial officer pestered him to make money by the misuse of his
official capacity, got a derogatory statement published in the newspaper against him,
complained to the High Court and made a false allegation of his illicit intimacy with a
lady, held that the wife was guilty of cruelty. The court held that her act of character
assassination of her husband who had to discharge judicial duties impartially is more
cruel than any other act, because then the people would lose faith I him and will
ultimately tend to lower the prestige of the entire system. 33 The wife who was in Delhi
was informed of serious condition of her husband admitted, after an accident, to the
military hospital in Assam. She had not cared to meet him during his eight month’s stay
in Assam as also during his subsequent stay in Delhi hospital. Her conduct is cruelty in
its ordinary meaning and is of indifference.34
A wife writing a letter about the impotency of her husband to a third party (elder brother
of her husband) to the institution of marriage has caused mental agony and cruelty the
29
(1999) II DMC 40: AIR 2000 MP 190: (1999) 2 HLR 488 (MP).
30
Tapan Kumar Kundu v. BiraKundu, AIR 1988 Cal 223.
31
Kalpana v. SurendraNath, AIR 1985 ALL 253: (1985) 2 DMC 151 (All).
32
ArunaJalan v. Capt. (now) Major Ramesh Chand Jalan, AIR 1988 All 239.
33
D. Manga @Mangamma v. D. VenkataRamana, (2000) 1 DMC 663 (AP- DB): (1999) 6 Andh LT 141.
34
Rajinder Singh v. Tarawati, AIR 1980 Del 213.
47
husband.35 Writing provocative and insulting letters to her husband stating that even if
she had friendship with a sweeper, the husband will have to tolerate it, was held cruelty
on the part of the wife.36
Attempts by the wife to commit suicide or even threats by her to commit suicide and to
implicate the husband and his relatives for the same shall amount to mental cruelty to the
husband.37 In PankajMahajan v. Dimple @ Kajal,38 the Apex Court observed:
“It is well settled that giving repeated threats to commit suicide amount to cruelty. When
such a thing is repeated in the form of sign or gesture, no spouse can live peacefully”.
In the above case, the wife repeatedly threatened to commit suicide and also attempted it
by jumping from the terrace. Such acts are of such quality and magnitude as to create
reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioner that it would be injurious or
harmful to live with the other spouse.
Filing of an FIR by the wife against her husband under section 498-A of the Indian Penal
Code, which after investigation was found to be false is cruelty towards the husband.39
“Invoking legal remedy by parties cannot be termed as cruelty unless the same is
launched malafidely and with a view to harass and torture the other party” the court held
in KamleswariBai v. PeeluramSahi40. However, if the cases or criminal complaints are
false and malicious the same would constitute cruelty. Where a wife lodged criminal
proceedings under section 494 of Indian Penal Code and the factum of second marriage
of the husband was not proved, it was held to constitute mental cruelty to the husband.41
Although there are cases of cruelty to husbands in the 1970s and 80s but post 1990 a spur
in the number of instances of cruelty to husbands by their wives is observed. The women
of 70s and 80s harassed and tortured their husbands by blackmailing them that they will
commit suicide and implicate their husbands and in-laws under false charges of murder
35
G. Padmini v. G. SrivanandaBabu, (2000) 2 HLR 99 (AP DB).
36
Shimla Devi v. Kuldeep Sharma, (2001) 1 DMC 8 (Raj-DB).
37
A.P. RangaRao v. Vijayalakshmi, (1990) 1 DMC 567 (Mad);
38
(2011) 12 SCC 1.
39
Narendra Kumar Gupta v. Indu, AIR 2002 Raj 6: (2002) 1 DMC 430 (Raj-DB).
40
AIR 2010 Chh 16 at 18.
41
Raj Kishore Prasad v. Raj Kumari Devi, AIR 1986 Pat 362: (1986) 2 HLR 36 (Pat).
48
but a gradual shift in the conduct of the wives is seen post 90s where new methods of
harassing the husbands are used by the wives. The most common and frequently used
weapon is the filing of false criminal charges against the husband for fulfilling their
unreasonable demands and the same has been discussed further.
4.2 CASE STUDY
The researcher has looked into various cases from the year 2010 to 2015 under Section
13 (1) (ia) under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 where the wives were held guilty of cruelty
against their husbands and thus, a decree of divorce was declared in favour of the
husbands. The researcher has observed an analogy in these cases. Most of the cases
where the wives were held guilty of cruel conduct towards their husbands are in an urban
set-up. Similarly, in most of the cases, either the wife is well educated and financially
independent or has a sound family backup. At the same time, in most of the cases the
wives have used the weapon of women-centric laws for harassing their husbands and in-
laws. As in almost all the cases the wives have filed false criminal charges and civil
complaints against their husbands. Thus, Section 498-A of IPC (including other sections
of Indian Penal Code), Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and the newly framed women-
empowering civil Act, Domestic Violence Act, 2005 have been heavily misused. The
above statements will be authenticated by the illustration of the following cases:
4.2.1 Malathi RaviVs. B.V. Ravi42
In the above case, where the husband is an Associate Professor in Ambedkar Medical
College, Bangalore has filed a case for dissolution of marriage as his wife (now a
practicing doctor) deserted him severing all ties after 1.5 years of their marriage and went
to her parents and joined a post graduate course in a Medical College along with their
child. Despite the non-responsive attitude of the wife, he, without abandoning the hope
for reconciliation for leading a normal married life, went to the house of his in-laws, but
her parents ill treated him by forcibly throwing him out of the house which caused him
immense mental agony and pain by depriving him the company of his wife and child.
42
AIR 2014 SC 2881
49
The Court held:
“Despite obtaining decree for restitution of conjugal rights the wife waited till the last day
of the expiration of the period as per the decree to join the husband. There may be no
legal fallacy, but the attitude gets reflected. The reply also states that there is expectation
of reasonable amount of care and cordiality. This reflects both, a sense of doubt and a
hidden threat. As the facts unfurl, the wife stays for two months and then leaves the
matrimonial home and lodges the first information report against the husband and his
mother and sister for the offences punishable Under Sections 498A, 506/34 of the Indian
Penal Code and under the provisions of Dowry Prohibition Act. The husband suffers a
day's custody.”
The Court further held that : “From this kind of attitude and treatment it can be inferred
that the husband has been treated with mental cruelty and definitely he has faced
ignominy being an Associate Professor in a Government Medical College. When one
enjoys social status working in a Government hospital, this humiliation affects the
reputation. That apart, it can be well imagined the slight he might be facing. In fact, the
chain of events might have compelled him to go through the whole gamut of emotions. It
certainly must have hurt his self-respect and human sensibility. The sanguine concept of
marriage presumably has become illusory and it would not be inapposite to say that the
wife has shown anaemic emotional disposition to the husband. Therefore, the decree of
divorce granted by the High Court deserves to be affirmed singularly on the ground of
mental cruelty.”
4.2.2 JoshodebArjun (Dr.) Vs.Chirontoni Nandi (Arjun) &Anr.43
Where the husband is a P.hd. Degree holder and is serving as a Lecturer in Lumding
College while the wife is serving as a teacher at Katlicherra M.E. School, the respondent-
wife from the very first day of the marriage was avoiding cohabitation with
the husband and desired to get the marriage dissolved by divorce. On his enquiry, she
disclosed that she was suffering from the some organic physical ailments which requires
43
MANU/GH/0183/2013
50
treatment. The appellant husband assured his wife all possible treatment and he availed
leave for a month on the occasion of his marriage but she left the matrimonial home
before expiry of the leave period. The wife mostly used to stay in her sister's residence
The respondent, in order to humiliate the appellant, filed a false case under
Section 498A IPC against him and his old mother aged about 85 years, making some
false allegations and concocted story with an attempt to get them arrested by police.
“It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the
respondent, as a legally married wife, by refusing sex and cohabitation with the appellant,
has not only deprived him of peaceful marital life but also caused mental torture on him.
The mental torture has been multiplied due to institution of criminal case against him on
false allegations of demand for dowry under Section 498A IPC. It has been persuaded
that institution of false criminal case itself constitutes a strong ground for seeking
dissolution of marriage and a decree of divorce under the provision of Section 13(1)(ia)of
the 1955 Act.”
The Court held: “Having considered the entire facts and circumstances of the case and
evidence on record adduced by the parties, the present marriage between them can not be
allowed to continue as it is found proved that the respondent- wife committed cruelty on
the appellant-husband.”
4.2.3 Ajay Pal Singh Vs. Smt. Dr. Rosy Singh44
In this case, the marriage was solemnized in Panchkula. The husband was an IAS officer
and after 15-20 days of the marriage, the wife started treating the appellant and his
parents with cruelty and in a derogatory manner. The wife demanded that the appellant
should drive his mother out of the house and when the appellant refused to do so, the
wife started shouting loudly and torturing as well as harassing the appellant and his
mother both mentally and physically.
“At each place of posting, the appellant was defamed and insulted before his colleagues,
subordinates and general public, which adversely affected his personal, social and official
44
MANU/CG/0069/2012
51
life and has to face humiliation. The wife used to intimidate the appellant and his parents
that she will commit suicide and implicate them in a false case if they do not conduct
themselves as she desires. When the appellant was posted as Collector and District
Magistrate, Tikamgarh, in his absence she, with intent to commit suicide, had consumed
huge quantity of sleeping pills, on account of which she was admitted in the hospital. Her
father, without ascertaining the truth, had complained to the Police that the husband had
given poison to his wife. However, on enquiry, the same was found to be false and on the
contrary, it was found that in the absence of the appellant, the wife herself had consumed
sleeping pills.”
The wife also lodged a report against her husband and her parents under Section 498-A of
Indian Penal Code. The wife broke glasses of Appellants vehicle as well as house and
assaulted him with a wooden plank by which he sustained serious injuries
Held, the wife was guilty of cruelty to her husband.
4.2.4 Vishwanath S/o SitaramAgrawal Vs. Sau.

SarlaVishwanathAgrawal45
In this case, the Supreme Court held: “The conduct and circumstances make it
graphically clear that the Respondent-wife had really humiliated him and caused
mental cruelty. Her conduct clearly exposits that it has resulted in causing agony and
anguish in the mind of the husband. She had publicised in the newspapers that he was a
womaniser and a drunkard. She had made wild allegations about his character. She had
made an effort to prosecute him in criminal litigations which she had failed to prove as
she had made allegation about the demand of dowry under Section 498A of the Indian
Penal Code against the husband, father-in-law and other relatives. They have been
acquitted in that case. The feeling of deep anguish, disappointment, agony and frustration
of the husband is obvious. It can be stated with certitude that the cumulative effect of the
evidence brought on record clearly establish a sustained attitude of causing humiliation
and calculated torture on the part of the wife to make the life of the husband miserable.
The husband felt humiliated both in private and public life. Indubitably, it created a dent
45
MANU/SC/0513/2012
52
in his reputation as he was a known businessman in the town.” Thus, the marriage was
dissolved on the grounds of cruel conduct of wife towards her husband. A permanent
alimony of Rs. 50 lacs were fixed in favor of the wife.
4.2.5 K SrinivasVs.K. Sunita46
“The marriage of the parties was solemnized according to Hindu rites at Hyderabad on
11th February, 1989. On the night of 29th/30th June, 1995, the Respondent left the
matrimonial house and ever since then she has been living with her brother, who is a
senior IAS officer. The husband filed an original petition praying for divorce on the
ground of cruelty as well as of the irretrievable breakdown of their marriage. The
Respondent-Wife retorted by filing a false criminal complaint against the Appellant as
well as seven members of his family for offences Under Section 307 read
with Sections 34, 498-A, 384, 324 of the Indian Penal Code, and Sections 4 and 6 of the
Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. It is pursuant to this complaint that the Appellant-Husband
and seven of his family members were arrested and incarcerated. The court held that the
criminal complaint was filed by the wife after filing of the husband's divorce petition, and
being subsequent events could have been looked into by the Court. Thus, the filing of
false complaint by wife was sufficient to constitute matrimonial cruelty”
4.2.6 SumanKaushikVs N.P. Kaushik47
“In this case husband employed as Delhi judicial officer and wife working as a senior
government officer (Deputy Director in Ministry of Agriculture, KrishiBhawan). This
Delhi based couple, lived together only for 7 months (where the wife used to constantly
nag and shout at her husband before his relatives, colleagues and neighbours) and then
the wife deserted him and since then the couple is litigating for 25 years. The husband
was not even invited in the naming ceremony his child and when the he went to meet his
child, he was insulted by his in-laws and was not allowed to meet his own child. At the
same time, the wife made various false complaints under
Section 323 /325 /498A /201 read with Section 34 IPC as well as under section 406 was
46
MANU/SC/1050/2014
47
MANU/DE/0143/2013
53
registered against the respondent and his family members. An article also published in the
newspaper on the basis of interview of wife. It was held by the court that such conduct
caused mental agony to the husband. Thus, decree of divorce affirmed on the basis of
desertion and cruelty by the wife to her husband.”
4.2.7 Vasireddy Vs. VasireddyNaveena48

The husband is the legally-wedded wife of the petitioner and their marriage took place on
24.07.2009 at Sri Venkateswara Temple, Vijayawada of Krishna District. The marriage is
a second marriage to the wife and, earlier, the wife was married to another person and the
same was dissolved by a decree of divorce.
The wife used to insist the husband not to attend job and also quarreled with him when he
leaves to the office in the morning; the wife along with her father used to insist the
husband to undergo vasectomy operation only to see that the husband should not
procreate any children through the wife as she had already got a child with
her first husband. The husband raised additional grounds alleging that the wife, with a
view to harass him as well as his family members, lodged false complaint, which is
registered under Section 498A in which he was acquitted. It is alleged that, making false
allegations of demand of dowry by way of complaint, she further, filed complaint under
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The husband contended that he
thought of committing suicide many times as a result of ill-treatment meted out to him by
the wife.
The Court held that “the he husband was earning member from job, there was no
justification on part of wife to insist husband to remain indoors without going to job. The
wife was also not justified in quarrelling with him while he was going to work/job. Wife
filed criminal complaint only after filing of petition by husband seeking divorce - Such
conduct on part of wife constituted cruelty - Allegation of cruelty pleaded by husband
under Section 13(1)(ia) of Act was proved, therefore husband was entitled for relief of
dissolution of marriage.”
48
MANU/AP/0948/2015
54
4.2.8 R. Sureka Vs. G. Jayakumar49
In this case, the wife never joined her husband as a wife in a short span of three months.
She was always insisting him to give divorce and hence she was constantly refusing co-
habitation. She was insisting him to take his share of the properties from his parents and
to set up a separate house. After the span of three months, she is stated to have deserted
him without any valid reason. The wife and her family members chose to lodge a false
complaint against him and his family members and as a result of the same, he and his
father had to spend two days in Central Prison. Due to the same, he had suffered mental
agony and anguish.
“Held by the Court that the evidence placed on record shows that marriage between the
Bangalore based couple did not consummate in any manner and parties never
cohabitated. It was also evident that complaint filed by Respondent for demand of dowry
against Petitioner under Sections 498(A) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry
Prohibition Act was ill-founded and she prosecuted them, as a result of which, her
husband and her father-in-law had been in jail for three days. All members of family who
were not residing in house of husband were also roped in and they had to obtain
anticipatory bail. They had to attend Criminal Court on all hearing dates. This could be
definitely mental cruelty within the purview of Section 13(1)(ia) of Act - Further, the
wife has not placed on record as to steps taken by her to go back to matrimonial home or
to call upon husband to take her back. Moreover, parties had been living for more than
twelve years separately. Wife had three years time for joining her husband. However,
because of judicial separation order she did not join her husband. Intention of living
separately was virtually to protect matrimonial tie. Therefore, this also amounted
to desertion within purview of Section 13(1) (ib) of Act - Thus, cumulative effect of all
these events and instances was that Respondent-wife had treated Petitioner with Cruelty.”
Ratio Decidendi: "If behaviour of one spouse towards other spouse which causes
reasonable apprehension in mind of latter that it is not safe for him or her to continue
matrimonial relationship with other, same shall be a ground for seeking divorce."
49
MANU/KA/3429/2013
55
4.2.9 Anita Rani Vs. Suresh Kumar50
The parties are Dental Surgeons and got married on 4.2.1999 at Bahadurgarh according
to Hindu rites. After the marriage, the appellant used to provoke the respondent all the
times and pressurized him to live separately from the matrimonial home. The parties were
employed as Dental Surgeon in two separate Primary Health Centres and they were not
having good relations. The husband had signed on the register and had withdrawn her
salary but she kept mum at that point of time but thereafter started issuing letters to the
department for taking action against him.
Additionally, she lodged a criminal case against the husband and his family members
under Sections 498-A, 406 of the Indian Penal Code wherein the respondent was arrested
but the final outcome resulted in their acquittal. Such circumstances would cause
reasonable apprehension in mind of Respondent that it was not safe for him to live with
wife. Besides, refusing to attend household chores and showing disrespect to husband and
his family members amounted to cruelty towards husband. Thus, wife had treated the
husband with cruelty.
4.2.10 K. SrinivasRao Vs. D.A. Deepa51

“The Appellant-husband is working as Assistant Registrar in the Andhra Pradesh High
Court. The marriage between the Appellant-husband and the Respondent-wife was
solemnized on 25/4/1999 as per Hindu rites and customs. Unfortunately, on the very next
day disputes arose between the elders on both sides which resulted in their abusing each
other and hurling chappals at each other. As a consequence, on 27/4/1999, the newly
married couple got separated without consummation of the marriage and started living
separately. On 4/10/1999, the Respondent-wife lodged a false criminal complaint against
the Appellant-husband before the Women Protection Cell alleging inter alia that the
Appellant-husband is harassing her for more dowry and accusations that the mother of
the Appellant-husband asked the Respondent-wife to sleep with the father of the
Appellant-husband. Later, she even lodged a criminal complaint against her husband and
50
MANU/PH/0270/2015
51
MANU/SC/0180/2013
56
his family members under Section 498-A of Indian Penal Code. Escalated acrimony led
to complaints and counter complaints”
The Court held : “Making unfounded indecent defamatory allegations against the spouse
or his or her relatives in the pleadings, filing of complaints or issuing notices or news
items which may have adverse impact on the business prospect or the job of the spouse
and filing repeated false complaints and cases in the Court against the spouse would, in
the facts of a case, amount to causing mental cruelty to the other spouse. The High Court
wrongly held that because the appellant-husband and the respondent-wife did not stay
together, there is no question of the parties causing cruelty to each other. Staying together
under the same roof is not a pre-condition for mental cruelty. Spouse can cause mental
cruelty by his or her conduct even while he or she is not staying under the same roof. In a
given case, while staying away, a spouse can cause mental cruelty to the other spouse by
sending vulgar and defamatory letters or notices or filing complaints containing indecent
allegations or by initiating number of judicial proceedings making the other spouse's life
miserable. This is what has happened in this case”.
The Court further held that: “In the instant case, the marriage has irretrievably broken
down. Irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not a ground for divorce under the Hindu
Marriage Act. 1955. But, where marriage is beyond repair on account of bitterness
created by the acts of the husband or the wife or of both, the Courts have always taken
irretrievable breakdown of marriage as a very weighty circumstance amongst others
necessitating severance of marital tie. A marriage which is dead for all purposes cannot
be revived by the Court's verdict, if the parties are not willing. This is because marriage
involves human sentiments and emotions and if they are dried-up, there is hardly any
chance of their springing back to life on account of artificial reunion created by the
Court's decree.”
Ratio Decidendi: "Court shall grant decree for divorce if the case is based on grounds of
cruelty."
57
4.3 CASE ANALYSIS
If we analyze the above cases, a few similarities can be observed. Most of the cases
belong to an urban-setup, where the wives are well-educated and financially independent,
as is evident in the case of Malathi Ravi Vs. B.V. Ravi, where the wife is a practicing
doctor. Similarly, in Anita Rani Vs. Suresh Kumar, the wife is a dental surgeon whereas
in SumanKaushik case, the wife is a senior government officer and in JoshodebArjun
case, the wife is a school teacher. In some cases where the wife is not financially
independent, she has a family back-up, for e.g. in K Srinivas Vs. K. Sunita, the brother
of the wife was an IAS officer and in Vasireddy Vs. VasireddyNaveena, the father of the
wife had an interference in their personal life. In other cases, the family of the wife has
insulted and ill-treated the husband: R. Sureka Vs. G. Jayakumar, where the family of the
wife supported her to file false criminal complaints against the husband and his family
and in SumanKaushik case, the parents of the wife insulted the husband supported her to
fight against their husbands. It has been further observed that most of the couples belong
to urban cities e.g. Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vijayawada etc. In almost
all the cases, the wives have been constantly quarreling and insulting their husbands. The
wives put up unreasonable demands such as shifting from the parental home of the
husband to a separate home, as has been evident from the facts of Anita Rani Vs. Suresh
Kumar, R. Sureka Vs. G. Jayakumar and Ajay Pal Singh case or they would ill treat and
mentally harass their husbands and their family members on a constant basis as seen in:
Vasireddy Vs. VasireddyNaveena, Vishwanath S/o SitaramAgrawal Vs. Sau.
SarlaVishwanathAgrawal, SumanKaushik, Ajay Pal Sigh case. In some instances the
wives have accused the husbands for having illicit relationships and at other instances
they have insulted their husbands before their friends, colleagues and seniors: Ajay Pal
Sigh and SumanKaushik case. The wives have reached to such an extent where they have
published defaming and insulting contents against their husbands as evident in
Vishwanath S/o SitaramAgrawal Vs. Sau. SarlaVishwanathAgrawal and SumanKaushik
case. Another, very prominent similarity in these cases has been analyzed which shows
the level of intolerance among these wives. In all most all the cases, the wives have
lodged false FIRs under Section 498-A of Indian Penal Code and other penal provisions.
The false criminal complaints are lodged not only against their husbands but the wives
58
have also dragged in the old parents and other family members of the husbands. This
depicts the insensitive revengeful and egoistic attitude of these so-called urban educated
wives. These wives have misused the women empowering laws such as Dowry
Prohibtion Act, 1961, Domestice Violence Act, 2005 and various other penal provisions
(498-A, etc) for harassing their husbands. The intolerance level of these wives have
reached to such an extent that whenever their illegitimate demands are not fulfilled or
whenever there are petty arguments or disagreements with the husband or his family
members (as normal wear and tear is a part of a marital life), they exaggerate issue to
such a level that the matter reaches to the doors of Court or to the Women Cells and pro-
women NGOs. It is also observed that in some cases the wives have deserted their
husbands and later on when the husbands have filed a petition for divorce, the wives had
filed false civil and criminal charges against them, as seen in: K SrinivasVs.K. Sunita
case and in the case of Vasireddy Vs. VasireddyNaveena.
Thus, after analyzing the above cases, the following traits of the above mentioned urban
based wives can be summarized:
 Wives showing uncontrollable and aggressive behaviour,
 Demonstrating abusive behavior such as abusing her husband’s parents, sisters

and brothers with filthy words and in a deliberately extra-loud voice with the
intention of creating a scene of public humiliation and intending to intimidate and
terrorize her victims;
 Desertion: Wife visiting her parents/siblings frequently and lingering for long at
her parental home without any reasons and leaving the marital home (husband’s
house), at times along with their children without giving any reason to her
husband or his parents, denying him access to his own beloved offspring, with the
intention of placing unlawful and unjust psychological pressure on him to
surrender to her demands,
 Misrepresenting facts and incidents to cast them in a sinister light and as crimes
and atrocities against herself;
 Blackmail: Threats to commit suicide if her undue demands are not yielded to;
59
 Defamation: Defaming husband’s family in their neighborhood and in their
relations by spreading false stories of her harassment and torture and at times
publishing the same;
 Wife’s parents failing to restrain, reprimand and correct her for her wrongdoings
but rather giving her full and unconditional support, and in turn falsely blaming
the husband and in-laws for domestic troubles;
 Filing of false criminal and civil charges against her husband and his family.
The women centric laws seemed to be a lethal weapon in the hands of these wives who
first mentally and physically harass and torture their husbands and their families and to
add fuel to the fire, file false charges against their husbands and in-laws and make them
suffer even more. The husbands are always on the losing side. At times the husbands with
their old parents have to spend nights at the lock ups on false charges. It has been
observed, at times the wicked women who are well-aware of the pro-women laws,
blackmail or intimidate the husband and his parents that she will commit suicide and
implicate them in a false case if they do not conduct themselves as she desires. In the
same way these women threaten their husbands and in-laws for filing false criminal cases
to fulfill their ulterior motives.
The above mentioned cases clearly depict that in the last 5 years, that the modern urban
women are becoming intolerant towards their husbands and in-laws. They have
discovered a new tool for harassing and torturing their husbands. This tool is the women
empowering laws, which were initially framed for protecting the vulnerable and
supressed class of women and for uplifting their status in the society. But unfortunately,
women empowerment seems to be a myth in the orthodox set-up of the society. Whereas,
those who least deserve these women centric laws, uses them the most. It is sad and
unfortunate that because of the wide miss-usage, these women-centric laws are losing
their credibility and the genuine cases are also viewed with suspicion and thereby
depriving them of appropriate recourse provided by the law. The Supreme Court, in the
case Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar52 stated: "Crime in India 2012 Statistics" published
52
AIR 2014 SC 2756
60
by National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs shows arrest of 1,97,762
persons all over India during the year 2012 for offence Under Section 498-A of the
Indian Penal Code, 9.4% more than the year 2011. Nearly a quarter of those arrested
under this provision in 2012 were women i.e. 47,951 which depicts that mothers and
sisters of the husbands were liberally included in their arrest net. Its share is 6% out of the
total persons arrested under the crimes committed under Indian Penal Code. It accounts
for 4.5% of total crimes committed under different sections of penal code, more than any
other crimes excepting theft and hurt. The rate of charge-sheeting in cases Under
Section 498A, Indian Penal Code is as high as 93.6%, while the conviction rate is only
15%, which is lowest across all heads. As many as 3,72,706 cases are pending trial of
which on current estimate, nearly 3,17,000 are likely to result in acquittal.” It is a fact that
wives usually use the power of Section 498A to increase her bargaining power for getting
large amounts as alimony and maintenance.
Thus, from the above cases one could infer:
Instances of mental cruelty to husbands by their wives are generally seen in an urban
society.Most of the wives who treat their husbands with cruelty are either financially
independent or are well educated with a sound family back-up.The women empowering
laws such as Section 498-A of IPC, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, Domestic Violence
Act, 2005, etc are being heavily misused by a handful urban women (aware of legal
provisions). These women-empowering legal provisions are yet to achieve their real
purpose by reaching to those vulnerable weak class of women who are actually
suppressed and harassed by the patriarchal society.Although women empowerment is a
dream to be achieved in India but the so-called urbanized version of women
empowerment is a major reason for increasing intolerance among a hand-full women
towards their husbands and in-laws, as a result of which a good number of cases are filed
where the wife has treated her husband and his family members with acute cruelty.
61
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
Marriage is a major catalyst of change for women, who are obliged to move to a new
home and to adjust to a new family. However, this is inevitable, and in the long history
of mankind, it has been done. When two or more people live together, each of them
cannot behave as a commander-in-chief. Someone has to yield to the other. In most
marriages, husband and wives make sacrifices in order to adjust to each other. Husband
and wife are the two wheels of a cycle, in order to experience a comfortable and smooth
ride, the coordination of these two wheels is mandatory. In the same way, for spending
a happy and blissful married life, the feeling of co-operation, understanding and
patience between the two forms the essence. However, when both insist on their rights,
acting as independent and sovereign countries, clashes are bound to develop. Due to
this, even a small thing can degenerate into a major quarrel. The attitude towards
marriage is rapidly changing in modern urban India. In the same way, the traditional
roles of men and women have also changed up-side down in metropolitan cities of the
country. Sita is no more a role model for the modern Indian wife. The modern urban
woman is educated, financially independent and well acquainted with their legal rights.
This revolutionary transformation in character of modern urban women has
undoubtedly raised the status of women in the society and has unleashed the
conservative orthodox beliefs of women being inferior to men. The modern day women
are climbing mountains, exploring space, owning huge business empires, excelling in
profession and personal life simultaneously. But as there is a common saying that –
nothing comes for free. A sharp rise in cases of cruelty by wife towards her husband has
been witnessed lately.
As discussed in the 4th Chapter, there have been innumerous instances where the wives
acted in a cruel manner with their husbands and in-laws. Thus, after analyzing the cases
in chapter 4 under case study (4.2.) and case analysis (4.3.), the researcher has proved
that the hyposthesis stands to be correct. It can be safely inferred that the modern urban
62
women of India are becoming intolerant towards their husbands and in-laws. The
unreasonable demands for leaving the parental home of the husband and shifting to a
separate residence, refusal to do household chores, shouting, abusing and insulting the
husband and his old parents, deserting the husband in order to pressurize him to
surrender to her demands, clearly demonstrates the ugly face of modern-aged urban
women. The Indian modern women of the 21st century have torn apart the burden of
tolerance, patience and sacrifice which she was carrying on her shoulders from time
immemorial. Gone those days when women were considered to be “Sati Savitri”.
If one tries to explore the reasons for this drastic and sudden transformation in the
character of the modern Indian women, one would find that there are several reasons to
it:
 The cosmopolitan culture and media exposure is highly inflecting the behavior of
men and women and so the marital relationship. The attitude towards marriage is
rapidly changing all over India. Earlier they used to debate on joint families
breaking into nuclear families and these days the discussion is on the nuclear
families that are breaking apart further due to individualistic and selfish approach.
 The modern urban women are well- educated, financially and socially
independent. She fights for her rights and freedom and demands equal status
which at times leads to self-centered and insensitive attitude towards their
husbands and in-laws. On the other hand for the parents of the husband who
belongs to the older generation fails to accept the new liberal attitude towards life.
 The new age woman seeks privacy and freedom in their personal life. She tends to
become aggressive if somebody interferes in her private zone. This also a major
reason for clashes among the couples.
 The pseudo “Feminist” propaganda, MahilaKendras, Women organizations have

turned a blind eye to the atrocities done by wives to their husbands and instead
add fuel to the fire by instigating and manipulating the wives to take stringent
actions against their husbands and in-laws by filing false criminal and civil
complaints.
63
 Our laws with loopholes encourage false complains by wives, as there is no such
counter check to investigate reality of any crime informed by wife. In most cases,
the wife files false FIR who think that police case will weaken the husband
mentally so he and his family would agree to her demands, be it related to money,
property or family related issues.
It has been seen from ages that men have abused their dominant position bestowed
upon them by the patriarchal society against the vulnerable class of women. And there
is no denial to the fact that the women in this 21st century are still enduring the pain and
sufferance by the dominant male fraternity to a great extent. But one should also be
sensitive towards those men who are victimized by their dominant wives. A victim is a
victim. Gender should not be the criteria for providing relief and punishing the accused.
The above mentioned cases in the 3rd and 4th chapters make it crystal clear that in the
last 30-40 years there have been several instances where wife has treated her husband
and his family with cruelty. Moreover, a new scenario is observed by the researcher in
the last 5 years, where a new kind of mental cruelty has been introduced in the marital
relations. The wife in addition to the constant quarrels, insults, nagging, shouting,
desertion, adulterous behavior, misuses the women empowering criminal and civil laws
for her advantage in order to harass and humiliate the husband and his family. It has
been observed lately, that in most of the divorce cases, the wife files false criminal
charges under Section 498-A of Indian Penal Code against her husband. “Section 498-A
of IPC is a cognizable and non-bailable offence and has lent it a dubious place of pride
amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled
wives. The simplest way to harass is to get the husband and his relatives arrested under
this provision. In a quite number of cases, bed-ridden grand-fathers and grand-mothers
of the husbands, their sisters living abroad for decades are arrested.”1 This causes
immense mental agony, suffering and loss of reputation in the society.
Mostly people talks about the ugly side of dominant brutal husbands and the tender side
of weak, submissive wives. But in the above chapters the researcher has done just the
opposite. Although, the number of incidents and cases are quite less as compared to
1
Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar, AIR 2014 SC 2756
64
those cases in which men treat their wives with cruelty, but one should not act blind that
he closes his eyes for the fact that men can also be victimized to the torture and ill-will
of their wives. The researcher has tried to uncover the ugly side of those wives who
were indulged in harassing and torturing their husbands.
Indeed women empowerment is the need of the hour. The women-centric laws are utmost
necessary for uplifting the status of Indian women. But the point is, whether these laws
are actually availed by the helpless vulnerable women who are genuinely in need of
them? Are these laws and enactments reaching the rural areas or to the orthodox families
where women are treated as unpaid household maids and even worse considered as
slaves? The reality is, women empowerment and the various women-centric laws have
become a weapon in the hands of a few legally-aware, educated, financially- independent
(or having a sound financial backup) women who mock at these laws and used them
against their husbands. At the same time the “so-called women-empowerment” for a
handful urban-based women has become a major reason for intolerance among them,thus
leading to an increased number of divorce cases on the grounds of cruelty.
CONCERNS AND SUGGESTIONS
 The first and the foremost aspect for dealing with the issue of curbing cruelty
done to husbands is the need to accept the fact that men can also fall prey in the
hands of their torturous, insensitive and brutal wives. Although, in this patriarchal
set-up, the society usually denies that husbands can be victims of cruelty done to
them by their wives as the number of cases in respect of male victimization is
lesser in number than female victimization. But the recent judicial trends have
unfolded a different picture where the Courts have declared divorces in favour of
husbands on the grounds of cruelty done to them by their wives. Thus, this
awareness about male victimization should reach to all the ears of our country
through media, books and technology. Obviously, counter-arguing the feminist
point of view- the awareness among people about male-victimization would not
subdue the hundreds of years old efforts by the feminists of uplifting the status of
65
women in the society. According to feminist scholars, recognition of male
victimization by considering women to be the aggressor in a marital tie would
again deteriorate the position of the women in society and whatever less
improvement has been done in this field will be shattered into pieces. On the
contrary, according to the researcher recognition of male victimization will-
firstly, induce a feeling among the people that not only women but even men can
be a vulnerable class. This awareness will rub off the age-old myths about men
being dominant, powerful and mentally and emotionally stronger than woman. As
this puts both men and women at equal pedestal. Secondly, by recognizing male
victimization in our society, the harassment and insensitive treatment faced by the
innocent husbands in the hands of police, women cell, NGOs will be reduced to a
great extent. There is a simple logic behind it- just because there are fewer
instances of sexual assault with men in the country as compared to women,
doesn’t mean, male victimization should not be recognized. The same logic
applies to the case of cruelty to husbands by the wives. There are a number of
criminal provisions such as Section 498-A of IPC, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
and civil acts such as Domestic Violence Act, 2005, etc which are gender-based
laws exclusively formulated by the Indian legislature for the protection of women
rights and for improving their position in the society. Whereas cruelty as a ground
of divorce in matrimonial Acts is a gender neutral law, under which husband and
wife both could seek divorce. Undoubtedly, these women-empowering laws are
inevitable in the current scenario for raising the status of women in India but by
looking at the pace with which the urban society of India is developing, it is
recommended to start from the nursery level by making the population of our
country aware of male victimization through the modes of television, news,
internet, books, etc. Here by awareness the researcher does not imply, potraying
the aggressive and cruel side of married women. She implies identifying a class of
men as a vulnerable section of society who can also fall prey to domestic
violence.
 It has been suggested by many NGOs formed especially for protection of men
rights that the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 should be made gender neutral. But
66
the researcher begs to differ from this suggestion. India is in a transitional stage,
where the status of women in the society is slowly and gradually rising. Till date
majority of Indian women are being victimized in some way or the other in this
brutal society. Thus, punishing the entire population of women for the mistakes of
handful intolerant women will be unfair and unjust. By making the laws relating
to domestic violence gender neutral, the goal of the legislation to improve the
position of women in society will not be achieved. On the contrary, this will lead
to a even more miserable position of women in domestic relations. By making the
law gender neutral, it will give immense power in hands of those cruel husbands
who will misuse these laws against their wives in a far more corrupt way than
done by some women now-a-days. Thus, a better suggestion is to keep a check on
functioning of police authorities, lawyers and NGOs by providing suitable
directions to thus curbing the misuse of various women empowering laws.
 The most important concern is: It is seen that most cases of misuse of women-
centric laws (498-A, Dowry Prohibition Act) are reported by urban families and
wives who are well educated, aggressive and keep threatening to go to police and
court with false complaints. Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code was
introduced with avowed object to combat the menace of harassment to a woman
at the hands of her husband and his relatives. As discussed above as Section 498-
A is a cognizable and non-bailable offence, it has lent it a dubious place of pride
amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by resentful
wives. The easiest way to harass and torture is to get the husband and his relatives
arrested under this provision.
“Arrest brings humiliation, curtails freedom and cast scars forever. Law makers know it
so also the police. There is a battle between the law makers and the police and it seems
that police has not learnt its lesson; the lesson implicit and embodied in the Code of
Criminal Procedure. It has not come out of its colonial image despite six decades of
independence, it is largely considered as a tool of harassment, oppression and surely not
considered a friend of public. The need for caution in exercising the drastic power of
arrest has been emphasized time and again by Courts but has not yielded desired result.
67
Power to arrest greatly contributes to its arrogance so also the failure of the Magistracy
to check it. Not only this, the power of arrest is one of the lucrative sources of police
corruption. The attitude to arrest first and then proceed with the rest is despicable. It has
become a handy tool to the police officers who lack sensitivity or act with oblique
motive.”
Therefore Supreme Court in its judgment Arnesh Kumar vs. State of Bihar 2 has
endeavored to ensure that police officers do not arrest accused unnecessarily and
Magistrate do not authorise detention casually and mechanically. In order to ensure
what we have observed above, we give the following direction:
“(1) All the State Governments to instruct its police officers not to automatically arrest
when a case Under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code is registered but to satisfy
themselves about the necessity for arrest under the parameters laid down above flowing
from Section 41, Code of Criminal Procedure;
(2) All police officers be provided with a check list containing specified sub-clauses
Under Section 41(1)(b)(ii);
(3) The police officer shall forward the check list duly filed and furnish the reasons and
materials which necessitated the arrest, while forwarding/producing the accused before
the Magistrate for further detention;
(4) The Magistrate while authorising detention of the accused shall peruse the report
furnished by the police officer in terms aforesaid and only after recording its
satisfaction, the Magistrate will authorise detention;
(5) The decision not to arrest an accused, be forwarded to the Magistrate within two
weeks from the date of the institution of the case with a copy to the Magistrate which
may be extended by the Superintendent of police of the district for the reasons to be
recorded in writing;
(6) Notice of appearance in terms of Section 41A of Code of Criminal Procedure be

served on the accused within two weeks from the date of institution of the case, which
2
AIR 2014 SC 2756
68
may be extended by the Superintendent of Police of the District for the reasons to be
recorded in writing;
(7) Failure to comply with the directions aforesaid shall apart from rendering the police
officers concerned liable for departmental action, they shall also be liable to be
punished for contempt of court to be instituted before High Court having territorial
jurisdiction.
(8) Authorising detention without recording reasons as aforesaid by the judicial

Magistrate concerned shall be liable for departmental action by the appropriate High
Court.”
The above mentioned directions are given for the cases Under Section 498-A of the
Indian Penal Code as well as Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
In spite of the Supreme Courts stringent directions to the police authorities and
Magistrate for curbing the menace of casual arrest, the police has shown a careless and
callous attitude and have continued harassing the husband and his family members
without proper verifying the actual facts. Moreover, there is also an economic motive
for the police not to register cases of domestic violence of women from the lower class,
as there is nothing to be gained from registering such complaints. On the other hand if a
woman from the middle or affluent class approaches the police, registering the
complaint become a money making business, as they can financially harass the
husbands.
The researcher would not suggest to quash 498-A of IPC or to make it a compoundable
offence. This would be unjust for the majority of women who need such penal sections
for their protecting themselves from the atrocities of cruel men of patriarchal set-up.
Instead, the researcher would recommend that the police authorities should mend their
corrupt and insensitive ways of arbitrary arrest without proper verification of facts.
They are strictly recommended to follow the guidelines and directions as mentioned
above given by the Supreme Court for protecting the innocent husbands and their
families from harassment and mental torture.
69
 Another major concern is the adversarial system of our country. In order to win
the cases, the advocates representing the wives stoop to such a level that they levy
false accusations on the husband and his family. They present false evidences and
fabricate an imaginary story and depicting the wife as a victim in hands of her
husband, when the case is just the opposite. The lawyers who are mostly
interested in money making (as they get heavy fees from the financially sound
wives) only focuses on winning the cases and in this race, the primary goal of
rendering justice to the genuine victim is lost. Thus, it is recommended that the
law institutions should try to inculcate the spirit of consciousness, integrity and
honesty. In the same way the lawyer are suggested to act ethically. Instead of
breaking a marriage by giving wrong advices to the wife and her family, they
should try to act in the light of professional morals and ethics.
 Whenever matrimonial relationship breaks, the first person to get affected by such
breakup is the child of the couple. It would obviously be unfair to force the
aggrieved spouse to stay in torture, pain and sufferance for the sake of his child.
But it is suggested for the couples actively and seriously participate in the
mediation and conciliation sessions. If there is any hope in the re-union of the
couple, especially in the cases of desertion, both, husband and wife should try
their best in reaching to a consensus. And it seems that their marriage is
irriterivably broken down then, efforts should be made to not to increase the
sourness between them.
 In the recent years another major concern which has emerged are the women
organizations and NGOs. Behind the false propaganda are the women
organizations and NGOs that are chasing big funds and aids in the name of
welfare of women and children. Due to the corruption in the system, organizations
are getting easy money from government and other international organizations
and they are surviving by doing propaganda on the basis of wrongly manipulated
facts and data. It is seen that most cases of misuse of dowry laws are reported by
urban families and wives who are well educated, aggressive and keep threatening
to go to police and court with false complaints. The Supreme Court has also
70
declared this malpractice of women-centric laws only after knowing that such
incidents occur on a large scale. But as usual, the National Commission for
Women denies any knowledge of such cases of misuse of the these laws. The
issue is not of misuse of law, but its greater propensity for the misuse. It can only
be controlled through proper channels like the women organisations, Crime
against Women Cell and Police.
Thus, one could see there is phenomenal increase in matrimonial disputes in recent
years. The institution of marriage is greatly revered in this country. Marriage is no more
considered as a sacrament in this modern society. The marital ties and love between the
couples is fading away in the threshold of Courts. There is an urgent call for reviving
the ancient Vedic matrimonial relationships where men and women shared an equal
status in the ordinary married life and maintained respect for each other and mutual
fidelity. They spent their lives in harmony and bestowed eternal love upon each other.
Although, considering the modern scenario, there is an utmost need of Divorce laws in
the country for setting free the aggrieved spouse from the burden of marriage. But it is
the duty of the parents, schools, teachers, books, media to try nurturing and inculcating
in the children high moral values such as, love, sacrifice, tolerance, honesty, mutual
respect and commitments so that the future generations blossoms into a society free
from the evil practices of cruelty against others.
71
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Resources:
BOOKS
 Hindu Law as judicially scanned 1956-2009 N.Kumar, (2009)

 INDIAN LAW OF Marriage & DIVORCE, Prof. Kusum Desai, (9th ed., 2014)
 Law of Marriage & Divorce, ParasDiwan, 5th EDITION, 2008
 Law Relating to Cruelty to Husband: Divorce and Maintenance to Wife, P.K. Das
(2008)
 Mookerjee’sMarruage separation and divorce, AshutoshMookerjee, (2009)
 Readings in Early Indian History: Women in Early Indian Societies,Kumkum Roy
& B.D. Chattopadhyaya, (2005)
 Women And The Law, Anjani Kant, (2012)
STATUTES
 Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939

 Indian Divorce Act, 1869
 Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976
 Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937
 Native Converts Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866
 Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936
 Special Marriage Act, 1954
 The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973
 The Domestic Violence Act, 2005
 The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
 The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
 The Indian Penal Code, 1860
REPORTS
xi
 The Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, Report (1956)
ARTICLES
 ShivaniGoswami, Cruelty By Wife Against Her Husband, Divorce & Matrimonial

Cases II, JS 7 (2009)
 Thomas, “T. Mathai, MODERNITY AND THE HINDU JOINT FAMILY
SYSTEM”. International Journal on World Peace 12.1 (1995)
WEBSITES
 http://www.498a.org/contents/Publicity/498a_YehKaisaInsaaf.pdf
 http://www.icrw.org/files/images/Reducing-HIV-Stigma-and-Gender-Based-
Violence-Toolkit-for-Health-Care-Providers-in-India-Annex-4.pdf
Secondary Resources:
Books
 DiwanParas “ Modern Hindu Law” Allahabad law agency,2005

 Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Friend of India (March 30, 1865)
 J.DuncanM.Derrett, A Critique of Modern Hindu Law (1970)
 K.D. Gour, A Textbook on The Indian Penal Code (2001).
 Kane, History of Dharamshastras, Vol II
 M.P. Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal History 3rd Edition (1972)
 Manu, manusmriti (Vols II, III, V, VI, VIII and IX)
 Mayne, Hindu Law (11th Ed.) & (12th Ed.)
 Mulla, Hindi Law ( 13th Ed)
 Narada, Stripumsa ( Vol. V)
 Prof. G.C.V. SubbaRao, Family Law in India 8th Edition, (2005)
 RadhaVinod Pal, History of Hindu Law, (1959)
xii
 S.B. Kitchin, A History of Divorce (2005)
 Swami Madhavanand and R.C. Majumdar, Great Women of India- Ideal and
position of Indian Women in Social Life (1953)
 W. Friedmann, Law in the Changing Society
xiii

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CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE: MALE

Dissertation submitted in part fulfillment for the requirement of the

RESHAM KHANNA DR. ANJU TYAGI

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

Dr. Anju Tyagi

I express my sincerethanks to my friends Kanika Nangrani and Monalisa Kosaria for

1. All LJ Allahabad Law Journal

1. Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939

1. A.P. Ranga Rao v. Vijayalakshmi, (1990) 1 DMC 567 (Mad)

S. No Title Page No.

4.3 CASE ANALYSIS 58-61

1.2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

 To study the concept of marriage and divorce from the pre-vedic

 To understand the concept and classification of cruelty under

 To critically review the major concerns in regard to cruelty to

1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY

1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

 What is the concept of marriage and divorce in Indian society?

 What is the concept of cruelty and how it is dealt under various

 What are the common issues and trends in cases of cruelty to

 What are the major concerns in relation to increasing cases of cruelty

THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

2.1 THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE

2.1.1 CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE VIS-A-VIS STATUS OF WOMEN IN VEDIC

The concept of marriage under Hindu traditions is regarded as a sacrament, indissoluble,

2.1.2 CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE VIS-A-VIS STATUS OF WOMEN IN POST-

2.2 CONCEPT OF DIVORCE

If we discuss about the Indian society, it is at a developing stage. It is a blend of ancient

CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE

3.1 MEANING OF CRUELTY

In Gollins v. Gollins5 Lord Pierce stated, “it is impossible to give a comprehensive

In Rayden on divorce it is observed:

Proof of intention (mensrea) or motive to be cruel is not necessary if the conduct

3.2 CRUELTY AS A GROUND OF DIVORCE

Cruelty as a ground of divorce has been provided in the following acts:

One should be very conscious in interpreting cruelty as its connotation or understanding

3.3 CLASSIFICATION OF CRUELTY

Cruelty is generally classified under the following two heads-

(1) Physical Cruelty, and

(2) Mental Cruelty

3.3.1 Physical Cruelty

3.3.2 Mental Cruelty

In the case of V. Bhagat v. D. Bhagat, the Supreme Court observed:

In ManishaTyagi v. Capt. Deepak Kumar, repeated abuses, taunts, rebukes, curses,

3.4 CRUELTY UNDER OTHER INDIAN LEGAL PROVISIONS

3.4.1 Concept of Matrimonial Cruelty in Penal Code

Explanation- For the purpose of this section, "cruelty" means-

4.1 CRUELTY TO HUSBANDS BY WIVES

In Manish SandeepGade v. SandeepVinayakGade,6 the wife made baseless allegations of

4.2 CASE STUDY

4.2.1 Malathi RaviVs. B.V. Ravi42

4.2.2 JoshodebArjun (Dr.) Vs.Chirontoni Nandi (Arjun) &Anr.43

4.2.3 Ajay Pal Singh Vs. Smt. Dr. Rosy Singh44

Held, the wife was guilty of cruelty to her husband.

4.2.4 Vishwanath S/o SitaramAgrawal Vs. Sau.

4.2.5 K SrinivasVs.K. Sunita46