Bengaluru: Finding fault with the approach adopted by a Family Court of Hubballi which had granted divorce to the husband solely on the ground that the wife had registered a complaint against him with Women’s Police Station, the Dharwad bench of the Karnataka High Court has set aside the said order.
A mere oral allegation of cruelty without any concrete proof or corroboration would not establish cruelty so as to justify a decree of divorce, the court has held in the order passed on Oct 16. After perusing the materials on record, a division bench comprising Justices MI Arun and Raghavendra Seetharam Srivasta pointed out that the incident of lodging the complaint with Women’s Police Station had ended in a quick closure and there is no other incident of the appellant-wife causing any semblance of hurt, much less cruelty, against the respondent-husband.
They got married in Oct 2008 at Karwar. On Jan 25, 2017, the Family Court granted divorce to the husband on the ground of cruelty on the basis of the complaint registered by the wife and also desertion. In the course of the trial, the respondent-husband denied that the child born on Dec 15, 2011, to the appellant-wife is not his child.
The wife had challenged the said order before the high court. The couple belonged to the Christian community. However, their relationship turned sour after a couple of years. The ground of adultery urged by the husband was, however, rejected. The Family Court has rushed to the conclusion that there was cruelty on the part of the appellant, the bench added. Dwelling further, the division bench also noted that, in fact, the wife was a victim of cruelty meted out by the husband. He has denied knowledge of the fact that the appellant-wife gave birth to a male child. He has also made sweeping allegations about the appellant’s character in the course of his deposition. In an attempt to cover up his follies, he has gone to the extent of denying the very notice issued on his behalf by his advocate. The respondent has adopted an approach of blanket denial without any substantiation of his allegations. The most striking feature of his deposition is that he stated that he was not prepared to undergo a DNA examination to ascertain the paternity of the child. The nature of reckless and unsubstantiated allegations made by the respondent against the appellant would surely amount to cruelty on his part towards the appellant. Moreover, the child was born during the subsistence of a valid marriage between the appellant and the respondent. Far from taking note of such deplorable conduct and irresponsible deposition of the husband, the Family Court has not even adverted to this crucial aspect, the division bench further elaborated in their order. The finding of the Family Court on that ground is plainly erroneous. The discussion on the ground of cruelty by the Family Court is surely unsatisfactory. Moreover, all relevant factors, including the irresponsible deposition of the respondent including disowning the child and refusing to undergo DNA examination, ought to have featured in the judgment of the Family Court, the division bench further observed while setting aside the decision of the Family Court.