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.
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