Case: Parveen Mehta Vs. Inderjit Mehta

3. The appellant is the wife of the respondent. They were married according to Hindu rites and customs on 6th December, 1985. The marriage was preceded by negotiation between the two families, ring exchange ceremony, etc. A meeting between the boy and the girl was also arranged at Yamuna Nagar in the State of Haryana. After marriage the spouses stayed together at Panipat where the respondent was posted as a Judicial Officer. They lived together till 28th April, 1986 when they parted company never to stay together again. It is the case of the respondent that right from the first day of the marriage he sensed something abnormal with his wife; he was unable to consummate the marriage as there was no cooperation from the side of the wife for sexual intercourse. Despite several attempts cohabitation was not possible for lack of cooperation on the part of the wife. It is the further case of the respondent that when he first met his wife when some members of the two families met he had noticed that she was looking very frail and weak. When he wanted to know the reason for such state of her health her father and other relations told him that she had been undergoing a strict diet control and had been making efforts to reduce her weight4. On questioning his wife immediately after the marriage the respondent could ascertain that she was suffering from some ailment and she was under the treatment of Valid Amar Nath Sastry of Chandigarh. On 10th December, 1985 the respondent took his wife to see Mr. Sastry at Chandigarh who informed him that father of the girl was his close friend and he was already seized of the problems of her health. He gave some medicines to be taken by her. Thereafter they returned to Yamuna Nagar where parents of the respondent were living. Subsequently, the respondent took the appellant to Panipat where he was posted and they started living there and continued with the medicines. In February, 1986 the appellant agreed to be examined by Dr. B.M. Nagpal of Civil Hospital, Panipat. The doctor advised a through check up and diagnosis. However, this was not possible since the appellant did not cooperate and ultimately gave out because she was no interested in taking any medical treatment5. The respondent further alleged that the state of health of the appellant continued to deteriorate; she continued to lose weight; she suffered from asthmatic attack; on account of her ailment her behaviour became quarrelsome; and on trifle matters she threatened to leave the matrimonial home. It was further contended that during her stay at Panipat when Surinder Singh Rao and Virender Jain, friends of the respondent visted his place, the appellant refused to prepare tea and started misbehaving with him in presence of the outsider thereby causing embarrassment to him. Ultimately on 28th April, 1986 her brother and brothers wife came to Panipat and took the appellant with them. It was the further case of the respondent that when the appellant was with her parents several attempts were made by him offering to give her the best possible medical treatment so that the condition of her health may improve and both of them could lead a happy married life. All such attempts failed. The offer of medical treatment was rejected and even nature of the ailment suffered by her was not disclosed to the respondent6. On one occasion when Shri S.K. Jain, a senior officer of the Judicial Service, then the Legal Remembrancer of Haryana and who later became a Judge of the High Court was discussing the matter with the parties with a view to bring about a settlement the appellant caught hold of the shirt collar of the respondent and created on ugly and embarrassing situation. Again on 30th July 1986 the appellant accompanied by a number of persons searched for the respondent in the Court premises at Kaithal and not finding him there forcibly entered his house and threatened him. A report about the incident was sent to the superior officer of the respondent. Alleging the aforesaid facts and circumstances the respondent filed the petition in August, 1996 seeking dissolution of the marriage on the grounds of cruelty and desertion7. the appellant refuted the allegations made in the petition. She denied that her husband had been misled regarding the state of her health before their marriage. She alleged that the marriage was duly consummated and the phera ceremony was performed; and that her husband had been expressing full love and affection towards her. She denied that she suffered from any serious ailment and had been treated by Valid Amar Nath Sastri. It was her case that she had become pregnant from the wedlock but unfortunately there was miscarriage. It was the further case of the appellant that the respondent and his parents wanted to pressurise the appellant and her parents to agree for a divorce by mutual consent. On 21st June, 1987 when a meeting of relations of both sides took place at the house of her mothers sister Smt. Prakash Kapur at Yamuna Nagar the respondent stated that the appellant was too frail and weak; that she must be suffering from some disease and therefore, he was not prepared to take her back. Thereafter several attempts were made by her parents and other relations to persuade the respondent to take the appellant to his house but such attempts were of no avail on account of want of any response from the respondent and his parents8. On the pleadings of the parties, the Trial Court framed t he following issues:e has deserted the petitioner, if so, its effect? OPPe is guilty of cruelty, if so, its effect? OPP3) Whether this petition is barred by latches, in accordance with Section 23(1a) and (d) of the Act? OPP9. Both the parties led evidence, both oral and documentary, in support of their cases. The Trial Court on assessing the evidence on record, dismissed the petition for divorce filed by the respondent10. The respondent filed an appeal. FAO No.9 before the High Court assailing the judgment of the Trial Court. The appeal was allowed by the learned Single Judge by the judgment rendered on 1st June, 2000. The learned Single Judge granted the prayer of the respondent for dissolution of the marriage on the ground of cruelty and further held that as the marriage took place about 14 years ago and there was no child out of the wedlock it would be in the interest of justice that the parties should be separated from each other. The operative portion of the judgment is quoted hereunder:In view of the discussion of such the only conclusion which can be arrived at is that despite the fact that the respondent is a good lady but has created the aforesaid situation because of her own act and conduct concerning thee of her state of health and concealment by her above acted as a mental and physical cruelty to the appellant which entitles him to a decree of divorce. Therefore, the findings of the learned District Judge on issue Nos.1 to 3 are reversed. For the foregoing reasons, the appeal is allowed, marriage between the parties stands dissolved and a decree of divorce on the grounds of desertion and cruelty is hereby granted in favour of the appellant (husband) and against the respondent (wife). In the circumstances of the case, the parties are left to bear their own costs. However, it would be appropriate to ask to the husband not to remarry till 30.9.2000. Hence ordered accordingly11. The wife, who is the appellant herein, filed an appeal before the Division Bench, Letters Patent Appeal No. 1000 of 2000, assailing the judgment of the learned Single Judge. The Division Bench of the High Court by the judgment rendered on 8th August, 2000 dismissed the Letters Patent Appeal in limine. The Division Bench held: Even otherwise, in the facts and circumstances of the case in hand, in our view, it cannot be said that the husband has tried to take advantage of any wrong on his part. Rather, he did make the best possible effort to explore the possibility of detecting the deficiency or disease, if any, and for treatment of poor health of his wife. But, all in vain. We find no merit in the Letters Patent Appeal. It is, therefore, dismissed in limine. The said judgment is under challenge in this appeal.

Court's reasoning:
n (1) of Section 13 of the Act is comprehensive enough to include cases of physical as also mental cruelty. It was formerly thought that actual physical harm or reasonable apprehension of it was the prime ingredient of this matrimonial offence. That doctrine is now repudiated and the modern view has been that mental cruelty can cause even more grievous injury and create in the mind of the injured spouse reasonable apprehension that it will be harmful or unsafe to live with the other party. The principle that cruelty may be inferred from the whole facts and matrimonial relations of the parties and interaction in their daily life disclosed by the evidence is of greater cogency in cases falling under the head of mental cruelty. Thus mental cruelty has to be established from the facts (Mulla Hindu Law, 17th Edition, Volume II, page 91)20. In the case in hand the foundation of the case of cruelty as a matrimonial offence is based on the allegations made by the husband that right from the day one after marriage the wife was not prepared to cooperate with him in having sexual intercourse on account of which the marriage could not be consummated. when the husband offered to have the wife treated medically she refused. As the condition of her health deteriorated she became irritating and unreasonable in her behaviour towards the husband. She misbehaved with his friends and relations. She even abused him, scolded him and caught hold of his shirt collar in presence of elderly persons like Shri S.K. Jain. This Court in the case of Dr. N.G. Dastane vs. Mrs. S. Dastane (supra), observed: Sex plays an important role in marital life and cannot be separated from other factors which lend to matrimony a sense of fruition and fulfillment21. Cruelty for the purpose of Section 13(1)(ia) is to be taken as a behavior by one spouse towards the other which causes reasonable apprehension in the mind of the latter that it not safe for him or her to continue the matrimonial relationship with the other. Mental cruelty is a state of mind and feeling with one of the spouses due to the behavioral pattern by the other. Unlike the case of physical cruelty the mental cruelty is difficult to establish by direct evidence. It is necessarily a matter of inference to be drawn from the facts and circumstances of the case. A feeling of anguish, disappointment and frustration in one spouse caused by the conduct of the other can only be appreciated on assessing the attending facts and circumstances in which the two partners of matrimonial life have been living. The interference has to be drawn from the attending facts and circumstances taken cumulatively. In case of mental cruelty it will not be a correct approach to take an instances of misbehavior in isolation and then pose the question whether such behaviour is sufficient by itself to cause mental cruelty. The approach should be to take the cumulative effect of the fact and circumstances emerging from the evidence on record and then drawn a fair inference whether the petitioner in the divorce petition her been subjected to mental cruelty due to conduct of the other22. Judged in the light of the principles discussed above what we find is that right from the beginning the matrimonial relationship between the parties was not normal; the spouses stayed together at the matrimonial home for a short period of about six months; the respondent had been trying to persuade the appellant and her parents to agree to go for proper medical treatment to improve her health so that the parties may lead a normal sexual life; all such attempts proved futile. The appellant even refused to subject herself to medical test as advised by the doctor. After 21st June, 1987 she stayed away from the matrimonial home and the respondent was deprived of her company. In such circumstances, the respondent who was enjoying normal health was likely to feel a sense of anguish and frustration in being deprived of normal cohabitation that every married person expects to enjoy and also social embarrassment due to the behavior of the appellant. Further, the conduct of the appellant in approaching the police complaining against her husband and his parents and in not accepting the advice of the superior judicial officer Mr. S.K. Jain and taking a false plea in the case that she had conceived but unfortunately there was miscarriage are bound to cause a sense of mental depression in the respondent. The cumulative effect of all these on the mind of the respondent, in our considered view, amounts to mental cruelty caused due to the stubborn attitude and inexplicably unreasonable conduct of the appellant23. The learned Single Judge in his judgment has discussed the evidence in detail and has based his findings on such discussions. In the Letters Patent Appeal the Division Bench on consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case agreed with the findings recorded by the learned Single Judge. In the context of the facts and circumstances on record we are of the view that the learned Single Judge rightly came to the conclusion that the prayer of the respondent for dissolution of the marriage on the ground of cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Act was acceptable. Therefore, the Division Bench committed no error in upholding the judgment of the learned Single Judge24. As noted earlier the parties were married on 6th December, 1985. They stayed together for a short period till 28th April 1986 when they parted company. Despite several attempts by relatives ands no conciliation between them was possible. The petition for the dissolution of the marriage was filed in the year 1996. In the meantime so many years have elapsed since the spouses parted company.