Supreme Court granted divorce on mental cruelty

In a very recent judgment dated 13.09.2021 passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of SIVASANKARAN VS. SANTHIMEENAL CIVIL APPEAL NO.4984-4985 OF 2021 comprising Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hon’ble Justice Hrishikesh Roy held that repeated filing of cases against the Husband is amount to mental cruelty. The fact of the case as mentioned in the order is that the appellant-husband and the respondent-wife resolved to tie the marital knot by solemnizing their marriage as per the Hindu rites and customs on 7.2.2002. It appears there was a crash landing at the take-of stage itself! The appellant claims that the respondent’s view was that she had been coerced into marrying the appellant without giving her consent, and left the marriage hall late at night and went to Pudukkottai. An endeavour by the relatives of the appellant to persuade her on the very next day to live with the appellant was not fruitful. The marriage was never consummated. As the marriage did not work out since its inception, the appellant issued a notice dated 25.02.2002 seeking divorce on the ground of cruelty under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’). Surprisingly, the respondent filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights soon thereafter. Respondent’s case was that the appellant and his family demanded dowry and, on being unable to oblige, the appellant’s brothers took him away from the Respondent’s company, rendering consummation of the marriage impossible. She claims that it was the appellant who refused to cohabit with her. In these circumstances, appellant filed HMOP 24/2003 on 05.03.2003 under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Act, which was later renumbered as HMOP 10/2005. Post-trial, a decree of divorce was granted after almost 5 years on 17.3.2008 on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage. The appellant did not waste much time and got married a second time on 23.3.2008 after 6 days. The respondent preferred an appeal before the Addl. District Judge, Pudukkottai. It is her case that she filed an appeal on 1.7.2008, within the period of limitation after obtaining all the requisite papers; but the appeal was renumbered as CMANo.5 and 7 of 2011. The appellate court set aside the decree of divorce while allowing the petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The third round took place before the High Court in the second appeal and, in terms of judgment dated 14.9.2018, the decree of divorce granted by the trial court was restored. Thus, each stage of scrutiny took 5 years, and 15 years passed in the litigation. In this period, the battle between the parties continued. This inter alia posed a question mark on the status of the second marriage of the appellant. The matter, however, did not end at this. The respondent filed a review petition inter alia on the ground that it was not within the jurisdiction of the High Court or the trial court to grant a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. The High Court noticed some aspects of alleged cruelty and dissolved the marriage by passing a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Thus, the review petition was allowed by the impugned order dated 25.2.2019, which has been assailed in the present appeal. Relying upon the previous judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court on the issues involved in the present case it was held that:- “The question, thus, is whether the respondent’s conduct after the initial trigger for divorce amounts to mental cruelty. On the basis of material on record, we endeavour to deal with this aspect and, in that behalf, we notice the following: (a) The respondent has resorted to filing multiple cases in courts against the appellant. It may be noticed that such repeated filing of cases itself has been held in judicial pronouncements to amount to mental cruelty. (b) Respondent filed W.P. No.20407/2013 praying for a writ of mandamus to initiate disciplinary action against the appellant, who was working as an Asst. Professor in the Department of History in Government Arts College, Karur. This writ petition was dismissed on 6.6.2019. (c) The respondent sought some information from the College vide an RTI application dated 3.6.2013. She claimed the information received from the college was insufficient and filed an appeal. She sought the service records pertaining to the appellant, apart from other documents such as the identity card issued to the appellant under the Star Health Insurance Scheme and prior permission obtained by the appellant for purchasing a piece of property owned by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board etc. (d) The respondent thereafter filed Writ Petition No. 9516/2014. Even the information already furnished to her was again sought for. The Madras High The court opined, in terms of the judgment dated 3.3.2016, that the respondent had raised unnecessary queries. Her queries sought information about her husband’s remarriage or whether he was living with somebody else, well known to her, and the proceedings were found to be an abuse of the process of the RTI Act. (e) The respondent made representations to the college authorities seeking initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the appellant. It was not confined to even those college authorities, but she made representations even to the Director of Collegiate Education and the Secretary, Department of Higher Education (Tamil Nadu). She sought disciplinary proceedings against the appellant on account of the second marriage despite the fact that the second marriage took place soon after the decree of divorce. Thus, she sought to somehow ensure that the appellant loses his job. Filing of such complaints seeking removal of one’s spouse from job has been opined as amounting to mental cruelty. On having succeeded before the first appellate court, the respondent lodged a criminal complaint against the appellant under Section 494 IPC even though her appeal was pending before the High Court. She sought to array and accuse even the persons who had attended the second marriage. The High Court quashed the criminal proceedings in terms of order dated 18.2.2019. There are episodes of further harassment by the respondent even at the place of work of the appellant including insulting the appellant in front of students and professors, as is apparent from the judgment of the Trial Court. She is stated to have threatened the appellant of physical harm in front of his colleagues as per the testimony of PW.3 and complained to the appellant’s employer threatening to file a criminal complaint against him (PW.3). The first appellate court somehow brushed aside these incidents as having not been fully established on a perception of wear and tear of marriage. The moot point is that the marriage has not taken of from its inception. There can hardly be any ‘wear and tear of marriage’ where parties have not been living together for a long period of time. The parties, undisputedly, never lived together even for a day. We are, thus, faced with a marriage that never took of from the first day. The marriage was never consummated and the parties have been living separately from the date of marriage for almost 20 years. The appellant remarried after 6 years of the marriage, 5 years of which were spent in Trial Court proceedings. The marriage took place soon after the decree of divorce was granted. All mediation efforts have failed. In view of the legal position which we have referred to aforesaid, these continuing acts of the respondent would amount to cruelty even if the same had not arisen as a cause prior to the institution of the petition, as was found by the Trial Court. This conduct shows the disintegration of marital unity and thus disintegration of the marriage.10 In fact, there was no initial integration itself that would allow disintegration afterward. The fact that there have been continued allegations and litigative proceedings and that can amount to cruelty is an aspect taken note of by this court. The marriage having not taken of from its inception and 5 years having been spent in the Trial Court, it is difficult to accept that the marriage soon after the decree of divorce, within 6 days, albeit 6 years after the initial inception of marriage, amounts to conduct which can be held against the appellant. In the conspectus of all the aforesaid facts, this is one case where both the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage and the ground of cruelty on account of subsequent facts would favour the grant of decree of divorce in favour of the appellant. We are, thus, of the view that a decree of divorce dissolving the marriage between the parties be passed not only in the exercise of powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India on account of irretrievable breakdown of marriage, but also on account of cruelty under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Act. In light of the subsequent conduct of the respondent during the pendency of judicial proceedings at various stages. The decree of divorce is, accordingly, passed.”

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