The family court recently granted divorce to an estranged couple on the grounds that the husband had been threatening to forcibly take custody of her son from her previous marriage. The woman had approached the court in November 2014, seeking separation from her husband on grounds of causing cruelty.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

The couple got married in February 2008; this was the woman's second marriage. She already had one child from her first husband. Judge SR Kafre's court noted that after the couple's marriage, the husband's brother died in a road accident. Since he did not have enough money to perform the final rituals of the deceased, he mortgaged his wife's mangalsutra. "Further, the husband, on one more instance, had mortgaged the gold ornaments of his wife to initiate a business, but even that effort went in vain. Meanwhile prior to setting his own business, the man was employed with a firm, but he had quit the same," the court said in its order.

"The husband never shouldered any financial responsibility. He owed some money in the market (sic)and some people visited his house demanding money. The wife then had no option but to repay the loan of Rs one lakh. The wife tried to get the gold ornaments from the money lender, but the whereabouts of her ornaments was not revealed by her husband."

The wife was taken aback by the fact that the gold chain, which she had prepared for their son on the occasion of his first birthday, was taken away by her husband without her knowledge. "However, for the sake of her son, she continued to sustain the mental agony," the order maintained.

Finally, the woman could not take any more harassment from her husband and her in-laws and so in November 2012, she left her matrimonial house.

The husband then started threatening her that he would take away their son from her. This was when she decided to approach the family court to seek separation.

When the court asked her husband to file a reply, he failed to revert to the court's notice. After going through the evidence, the court then held: "The wife has alleged that the husband has been harrassing her for no reason and repeatedly demanding a divorce from her. He has threatened her that he would take the custody of their child forcibly. Accepting the version of the woman, it is safe to hold that she has been treated with cruelty by her husband and so she is entitled for a divorce."