Mere failure to prove allegation that mother-in-law is mentally ill is not cruelty: Calcutta High Court

Failure to prove the allegation that a spouse's parent is mentally ill will not per se amount to an act of mental cruelty to warrant the grant of divorce and dissolve a marriage, the Calcutta High Court recently held..A division bench of Justices Harish Tandon and Madhuresh Prasad explained that in many families, mental illness may not even be acknowledged even if a family member suffers from the same. "We take judicial notice of the fact that family members of a large number of people suffering with mental illness are averse to accept the existence of mental illness, nurturing a baseless fear of social stigma. Such misplaced common notions cannot be accepted by the Court to hold that an allegation of mental illness of the husband's mother per se would constitute an act of mental cruelty," the Court said. .The bench, therefore, refused to accept an argument made by a husband that his wife had subjected him to mental cruelty by alleging without proof that his mother was a 'mental patient.' "Such allegation, per se, cannot be viewed to constitute an act of mental cruelty. Mere failure to prove the allegation of mental illness cannot be considered as an act of mental cruelty," the Court held in its order of December 21, 2023. .The bench was hearing cross appeals filed by both husband and wife challenging a July 2015 judgment of a family court which had refused to grant a decree of divorce in favour of the husband on grounds of cruelty and desertion under the Hindu Marriage Act. The husband was aggrieved by the refusal of the family court to grant him a divorce while the wife challenged the family court's decision to allow a judicial separation of the couple. .In his appeal, the husband alleged that the wife had quarreled with him and his family members and had used filthy language and even assaulted his old mother. He further alleged that the wife would often leave the matrimonial house and would return only after months, and that she never returned to the matrimonial house after 2003.The wife denied all these allegations. She contended that she was compelled to live at her parental house because she had secured a new job as a teacher and that it was easier to work and take care of the couple's daughter from there. She added that she visited her husband's house during holidays. She also claimed that such a living arrangement was based on a mutual arrangement between the couple. She also submitted that she learnt that her husband's mother was suffering from a mental illness only after marriage. This submission was strongly objected to by the husband who argued that such an allegation amounted to mental cruelty. .The Court, however, found that the husband did not have enough material to prove his allegations against the wife, including the allegation that she was cruel and had allegedly deserted him. .It, therefore, declined to grant divorce but quashed the order of the family court to the extent that it ordered the judicial separation of the couple..Advocates Kallol Basu and Bratin Kumar Dey appeared for the husband. Advocate Sohini Chakraborty represented the wife.