Pregnancy Can’t Undo Cruelty: Delhi HC

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 25th Nov: The Delhi High Court has ruled that pregnancy or temporary reconciliation cannot nullify earlier acts of cruelty within a marriage, as it granted a divorce decree to a man whose plea had earlier been rejected by a family court.

A bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Renu Bhatnagar set aside the family court’s order, calling its reasoning “legally untenable”, particularly its reliance on the wife’s miscarriage in early 2019 to conclude that the couple shared cordial relations.

“Cruelty must be assessed on the basis of the entire circumstances, not isolated episodes of reconciliation,” the court said in its November 20 judgment. It held that pregnancy cannot erase past abusive behaviour, especially when the record showed that the wife’s threats, insults and denial of cohabitation continued.

The couple married in March 2016, and the husband moved court in 2021 alleging cruelty, including humiliation, persistent threats of self-harm and desertion. The wife countered with allegations of dowry harassment and claimed she had been driven out of the home.

The family court had dismissed the divorce plea, holding that the husband failed to prove cruelty and that the wife’s miscarriage indicated a harmonious relationship.

Allowing the appeal, the High Court said the marriage had irretrievably broken down and that the husband had established mental cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act. It noted repeated humiliation and insults towards the husband and his mother, refusal to cohabit and desertion without reasonable cause.

In a parting note, the court observed that matrimonial disputes leave deep emotional scars and stressed that dissolution of marriage “is not a triumph of one over the other”. It urged both parties to maintain civility, especially in any pending or future proceedings related to maintenance or other reliefs.