Not Inviting Husband to Son’s Naming Ceremony Amounts to Cruelty: SC 14th July 2014 Md Dilawar Khan, Reporter A Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Dipak Mishra and Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya has ruled that not inviting husband to child naming ceremony amounts to cruelty. In the present Case the Husband has sought for the dissolution of marriage on the ground of divorce which was rejected by the family court. It was alleged by the wife that sister and brother-in-law of the husband used to interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the husband and they also pressurize his husband for not allowing her to prosecute higher studies and to keep her as an unpaid servant in the house which was not proven. The wife had gone to the parental home for delivery and therefrom she went to the hospital where she gave birth to a male child. Despite all his co-operation as a father, when he had gone to the hospital to bring the wife and child to his house, she along with the child had gone to her parental house. The next thing that came into the case was that the husband was not invited to the naming ceremony. The husband asserted that the said incident had caused him tremendous mental pain. The court ruled this amount to mental cruelty. In Vinit Saxena v. Pankaj Pandit, while dealing with the issue of mental cruelty, the Court held as follows: - “. It is settled by a catena of decisions that mental cruelty can cause even more serious injury than the physical harm and create in the mind of the injured appellant such apprehension as is contemplated in the section.” The apex court ruled “Mental cruelty and its effect cannot be stated with arithmetical exactitude. It varies from individual to individual, from society to society and also depends on the status of the persons. What would be a mental cruelty in the life of two individuals belonging to particular strata of the society may not amount to mental cruelty in respect of another couple belonging to a different stratum of society.” The Bench said: “We are disposed to think that the husband has reasons to feel he has been humiliated. His relatives have been dragged into the matrimonial controversy…, his parents and he are ignored in the naming ceremony of the son, and he comes to learn from others that his wife had gone to Gulbarga for her studies.” From this kind of attitude and treatment of the wife toward her husband it can be inferred that the husband has been treated him with mental cruelty. The Apex Court affirmed the decree for divorce passed by the High Court and directed Dr. Ravi to pay Rs. 25 Lakh towards maintenance and the education of their son.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 21:04:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015