Job loss due to wife's false charge is cruelty, ground for divorce

Getting sacked from one's job on false, character-assassinating allegations by the spouse amounts to cruelty, a Delhi court has held while granting divorce to a man who complained of harassment by his wife.

The verdict was delivered in a case of matrimonial dispute between a judge couple, with the husband, however, losing his job on the wife's compliant.

The husband had sought divorce and annullment of marriage alleging that his wife was "impulsive and hot-headed" and because of her complaint to the Punjab and Hrayana High Court, he had lost his job as a civil judge.

"Resignation from job is one thing but termination from a prestigious service, that of a judge, in which the respondent's complaint and her statement against the petitioner must have had a pivotal role, is indeed heart-rendering.

"By making scandalous allegations against the petitioner in her written statement, the respondent has indeed subjected him to cruelty," Additional District Judge Seema Maini said while allowing the husband's plea.

The court also held that "the conduct of the wife in threatening the husband to commit suicide amounted to immense cruelty."