Student forced to marry teacher entitled to divorce on ground of cruelty: Gujarat High Court

A teacher forcing his much younger student to marry him would amount to cruelty entitling the student-wife to divorce, the Gujarat High Court recently held..A division bench of Justices NV Anjaria and Sandeep N Bhatt, therefore, upheld the decision of a family court dissolving the 5-year-long marriage of a 45-year-old professor, who had forced his student, 12 years younger than him, to marry him."Cruelty is not a defined concept. A student forced to marry a teacher, both having large gap in terms of age and prospects, and post marriage treatment meted out to the wife (student) in the present case makes out to prove that she was subjected to cruelty," the bench said in its order pronounced on January 25. .The husband was before the Court challenging the order of a family court in Amreli district, which granted divorce to the wife on the grounds of cruelty. As per the facts of the case, the wife was a student of the husband, who was teaching her in the college. There he made advances and insisted that she scores an A grade in his subject failing which she will have to act as per his whims. Besides this, the professor kept calling her on phone insisting her to marry him. He told her that if she gets married to him, his two children from an earlier marriage, would get a mother's love. She alleged that he had obtained her signatures on some documents which later turned out to be a marriage application form. However, after marrying him, the girl learnt that his first wife wasn't dead and that his marriage subsisted. She further claimed that her in-laws kept taunting her and demanded ₹5 lakh from her parents for furniture. She further stated that the husband as well as the in-laws did not let her conceive and that she was forced to abort her pregnancy thrice. The husband, on the other hand, claimed that he funded the girl's studies and that it was a love marriage and not a forced marriage. He even argued that there wasn't much evidence produced by the wife to substantiate her claims. .Having considered the contentions, the bench said that in most cases, facts themselves speak the entire story. It noted that there was enough evidence in the case to prove the facts. "According to the case of wife, she was forced and trapped to contract marriage. There is gainsaying that the husband held the position of dominance and trust both. The wife aged 28 years was the student in the Polytechnic College. The husband aged 40 years was the teacher, who used to take the classes where she was also one of the pupil," the bench noted..The bench noted that the husband made advances to the wife, who was then his student to seek a relationship."Recurring incidences of sending of message to the wife was a kind of harassment and has to be viewed as harassment only when a person positioned as teacher sends such luring message to the student," the bench underscored. Reagrding the medical documents placed on record by the husband to show he took proper care of the wife, the bench said that the same on the contrary support the wife's contention and fortify her case that she was pregnant and abortion was forced on her as many as three times. Therefore, the bench dismissed the appeal and upheld the Family Court's verdict. .Advocate Ekrama H Qureshi appeared for the husband. Advocate Nishith P Acharya represented the wife. .[Read Judgment]