Mental cruelty by wife is ground for divorce : Supreme Court

This Supreme Court in its Judgment dated 4th July two thousand and twelve in Sarla Vishwanath Agrawal Agrawal vs  Civil Appeal No. 4905 of 2 012 decided that by Mental Cruelty by wife is ground for divorce.

The facts are that the husband filed an application for divorce. The same was dismissed by trial judge. The appeal by 1st appellate court was also rejected. Husband preferred Second appeal to the High Court. High court held that no substantial question of law was involved and dismissed Appeal. Husband approached Supreme Court by way of SLP.

Agreeing with the husband, Supreme Court granted leave and allowed his appeal. Relying on various judgments, the Supreme Court held that the expression 'cruelty' had an inseparable nexus with human conduct or human behavior. It was always dependent upon social strata or milieu to which parties belonged, their ways of life, relationship, temperaments and emotions that had been conditioned by their social status. Court observed that Section 13 (1) (ia) of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 did not define 'cruelty' and same could not be defined. 'Cruelty' might be mental or physical, intentional or unintentional. Mental cruelty was a state of mind and feeling with one of spouses due to behaviour or behavioural pattern by other. Mental cruelty could not be established by direct evidence and it was necessarily a matter of inference to be drawn from facts and circumstances of case. A feeling of anguish, disappointment, and frustration in one spouse caused by conduct of other could only be appreciated on assessing attending facts and circumstances in which two partners of matrimonial life had been living. Facts and circumstances were to be assessed emerging from evidence on record and thereafter, a fair inference had to be drawn whether Petitioner in divorce Petition had been subjected to mental cruelty due to conduct of other. As to what constituted mental cruelty for purposes of Section 13 (1) (ia) of Act, would not depend upon numerical count of such incident or only on continuous course of such conduct but one had to really go by intensity, gravity and stigmatic impact of it when meted out even once and deleterious effect of it on mental attitude necessary for maintaining a conducive matrimonial home. In a matrimonial dispute, it would be inappropriate to expect outsiders to come and depose - Family members and sometimes relatives, friends and neighbours were most natural witnesses. Veracity of testimony was to be tested on objective parameters and not to be thrown overboard on ground that witnesses were related to either of spouse. Conduct and circumstances made it graphically clear that, Respondent-wife had really humiliated Appellant and caused mental cruelty. Her conduct exposited that it had resulted in causing agony and anguish in mind of Appellant-husband. 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. Feeling of deep anguish, disappointment, agony and frustration of Appellant-husband was obvious. Cumulative effect of evidence brought on record established a sustained attitude of causing humiliation and calculated torture on part of Respondent-wife to make life of Appellant-husband miserable. Appellant-husband felt humiliated both in private and public life. With this mental pain, agony and suffering, Appellant-husband could not be asked to put up with conduct of Respondent-wife and to continue to live with her. Therefore, he was entitled to a decree for divorce.

The Court also held that Permanent alimony was to be granted taking into consideration social status, conduct of parties, way of living of spouse and such other ancillary aspects and granted permanent alimony of Rs.50 lakh to the wife.

Click here for the Full text of the judgment:

http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=39378

Supreme Court : High Court under Section 482 CrPC can compound the non-compoundable offences of personal nature but offences which involve moral turpitude, grave offences like rape, murder etc. cannot be compounded and can not be quashed on compromise by the parties

Yogendra Yadav vs State of Jharkhand (Criminal Appeal No.1205/2014)

Section 320 of Code of Criminal Procedure prescribe which offences can be compromised (called “compounding of offences” in legal language) by the parties themselves and which offences can be compromised by them with the permission of the court. The remaining offences which do not find mention in Section 320 CrPC can not be compromised even with the permission of the Court.

The facts of the case in brief are that complainant got registered an FIR under Sections 341, 323, 324, 504 and 307 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) alleging that appellants assaulted him and his men. On the same day, appellants also got registered an FIR under Sections 147, 148, 149, 448, 341, 323 and 380 of the IPC regarding the same incident alleging that complainant and his men assaulted them. In both the cases, after investigation, charge-sheet was submitted.

While the cases were going on before trial court, both the parties agreed to compromise the cases. A Panchayat was held where with the intervention of the well-wishers a compromise was arrived at. A compromise petition dated 16/11/2011 was signed by both the parties and it was filed in the trial Court. The trial court observed that offences under Sections 324, 341, 323 of the IPC are compoundable with the permission of the court and hence said offences were compounded and the accused were acquitted of the same. However, the trial court observed that offences under Sections 326, 307 read with Section 34 of the IPC are non-compoundable and hence directed that the case should proceed against the accused for offences under Sections 326, 307 read with Section 34 of the IPC.

This order was challenged by the appellants in the High Court of Jharkhand but the High court dismissed the challenge. The appellants then moved the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court by its judgment on 21^st July 2014 allowed the appeal and set aside the trial court’s and High court’s order and compounded the non-compoundable offences and quashed the proceedings. The Supreme Court relied on its earlier judgment in the case of Gian Singh vs State of Punjab (2012) 10 SCC 303 (wherein the Supreme Court had held that where the High Court quashes a criminal proceeding having regard to the fact that the dispute between the offender and the victim has been settled although the offences are not compoundable, it does so as in its opinion, continuation of criminal proceedings will be an exercise in futility and justice in the case demands that the dispute between the parties is put to an end and peace is restored; securing the ends of justice being the ultimate guiding factor). The Supreme Court held that in a given case, the High Court can quash a criminal proceeding in exercise of its power under Section 482 of the Code having regard to the fact that the parties have amicably settled their disputes and the victim has no objection, even though the offences are non-compoundable. In which cases the High Court can exercise its discretion to quash the proceedings will depend on facts and circumstances of each case. Offences which involve moral turpitude, grave offences like rape, murder etc. cannot be effaced by quashing the proceedings because that will have harmful effect on the society. Such offences cannot be said to be restricted to two individuals or two groups. If such offences are quashed, it may send wrong signal to the society. However, when the High Court is convinced that the offences are entirely personal in nature and, therefore, do not affect public peace or tranquility and where it feels that quashing of such proceedings on account of compromise would bring about peace and would secure ends of justice, it should not hesitate to quash them. In such cases, the prosecution becomes a lame prosecution. Pursuing such a lame prosecution would be waste of time and energy. That will also unsettle the compromise and obstruct restoration of peace.

Though State of Jharkhand filed an affidavit opposing the compromise, but the Supreme Court quashed  the proceedings in view of the compromise and in view of the legal position.

Manohar singh vs State of Madhya Pradesh (Criminal Appeal No.1498/2014)

In another matter on same day, the Supreme court held that where the parties enter into a compromise after the conviction has been recorded after trial, the non-compoundable offences can not be compounded. However, in such a situation if the court feels that the parties have a real desire to bury the hatchet in the interest of peace, it can reduce the sentence of the accused to the sentence already undergone (relying on Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Narinder Singh vs State of Punjab JT 2014 (4) SC 573). In this case, the offence involved was Section 498-A IPC and Section 4 Dowry Prohibition Act. Appellant was convicted under both and was sentenced. His appeal was rejected by the High Court. During his appeal in Supreme Court, he made a statement that he was willing to give monetary compensation to his wife in lieu of substantive sentence of imprisonment. His wife appeared and stated that if the appellant pays her Rs.2,50,000/- as compensation, she is ready to settle the matter. The appellant brought the demand draft of said amount.  The counsel for both parties requested the Court to show leniency in view of the settlement, however counsel for State opposed the prayer. The Supreme court, while maintaining the conviction, reduced the sentence to the sentence already undergone by the husband subject to his paying Rs.2.50 lakh to the wife, in the interest of peace and amity.

Sathiyamoorthy vs State (Criminal Appeal No. 1169/2014)

In yet another case on the same day, in respect of the offences under Sections 148 and 149 of the IPC (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), the supreme Court reduced the sentence to the sentence already undergone, in view of compromise between the accused and the victim.

Read the full judgment.

Sunil Goel advocate B.Sc. L.Lb L.Lm