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High court: Throwing husband out of house is desertion

The high court says wife is at fault for not allowing the spouse to enter his own house.

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Throwing away the husband from the matrimonial house amounts to ‘desertion’ on part of the wife, ruled the Bombay high court. Granting divorce to a Gujarat-based couple, the court observed that the wife was at fault for not allowing the husband to enter his own house and threatening him with dire consequences.

The division bench of justice Sharad Bobde and justice SJ Kathawalla, on the other hand, did not agree that the wife’s nature of losing temper on trivial issues leading to humiliation of the husband, subjected to cruelty. The HC overruled a family court’s decision to grant divorce on grounds of cruelty and desertion, and granted divorce only on the ground of desertion.

The court was hearing an appeal filed by Mrs X challenging the Bandra family court’s ruling of granting divorce from her husband of 20 years. Following a divorce petition filed by the husband, Mr Y, the family court had granted divorce in 2007.

The wife stays in Surat, whereas her husband resides in Valsad.

“The respondent (husband) deposed before the trial court that the appellant (wife) used to lose her temper on trivial matters, which were insulting and humiliating for him, as a result of which he could not sleep peacefully, and this in turn disturbed his work. We find this is a temperamental problem, which the wife may have had, and by itself is insufficient to establish cruelty towards the husband,” observed the court.

The court agreed that the said case was of ‘Animus Deserendi’ (intention to end cohabitation) on part of the wife and there was no intention shown for living together in the past 18 years of their marriage.

According to the judgment, Mrs X and Mr Y got married in Mumbai in May 1987. The wife first left her husband’s company in January 1989, but later filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The couple cohabited in April 1990 after the husband paid the wife Rs24,500. Again she filed a criminal complaint in April 1994, which was withdrawn after the husband paid her Rs10,000.

“According to the husband, on August 1, 1996, he was transferred to Valsad, but the wife refused to go with him, as she was working and giving tutions at Surat and did not want to leave the city. On January 12, 1997, when the husband visited Surat, the wife threw him out of the premises which he had rented for her to live in and also threatened him with dire consequences if he entered again. Since the incident, the couple lived separately,” says the judgment.

The husband had filed for divorce in the Bandra family court on grounds of cruelty as well as desertion in October 2003 as the marriage was registered here.
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