False reports to police against husband, in-laws is cruelty: Bombay High Court

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently observed that it would amount to marital cruelty if false and baseless reports were lodged with the police against one's spouse and his family relatives..Justice YG Khobragade added that initiating proceedings under the Domestic Violence Act or for the restitution of conjugal rights does not constitute cruelty per se. However, filing false reports against one's husband and his family would fall within the ambit of cruelty, the Court opined. “No doubt, initiating proceeding under DV Act and restitution of conjugal right do not by itself constitute cruelty, but lodging of various false, baseless reports with the police authorities against the petitioner, his father, brother, and brother-in-law and instituting civil proceeding showing herself as wife certainly falls within the ambit of cruelty,” the Court held..The Court was dealing with an appeal filed by a woman who had challenged an order allowing her husband's plea for divorce. In the 2022 order under challenge, a district judge in Beed, Maharashtra upheld a civil judge's divorce decree. The husband had sought divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion.He claimed that in 2012, his wife left him, returned to her parents’ house and initiated various proceedings against him and his family members, causing them mental cruelty.This included false complaints against his father and brother alleging molestation and threats to life.The father and brother were eventually acquitted. However, they suffered trauma and humiliation in society, he stated..The woman denied the allegations and counter-accused the husband of having left her company. She also claimed that she was treated cruelly by her in-laws. .The High Court, however, was not convinced by the woman's allegations. The Court found that both the civil judge and the district judge had earlier found that there was cruelty on the woman’s part against the man.Hence, the divorce decree had been rightly granted, the High Court held. “I am of the view that the evidence available on record is rightly appreciated by the appellate court (district judge) and there is no perversity or illegality in the same. I do not find that there is any substantial question of law involved in the present appeal,” the High Court observed while dismissing the woman's appeal..Advocate BS Phad appeared for the woman. Advocate Prashant K Nikam appeared for the man..False complaints by wife against husband, separation of 28 years constitutes mental cruelty: Delhi High Court