Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has said that a husband being openly humiliated and called as impotent by his wife in front of others and discussing their sexual life in the presence of family members causes mental cruelty and can be a ground for divorce.
A Bench comprising Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said this while setting aside a family court order refusing to grant divorce to the husband who challenged the said order before the High Court. .
The appellant had sought divorce from his wife on the grounds of mental cruelty citing various instances of public humiliation he suffered. He asserted that his wife displayed an irritable temper and a foul tongue, frequently picking fights on trivial matters. He also claimed that she publicly humiliated him by alleging impotency in front of family members.
Private and discreet Granting divorce to the man, the court held, “The public humiliation which the appellant suffered by the knowing/ unknowing acts of respondent in terming him impotent while it was a medical condition of sterility cannot be overlooked.
Rather than respecting the privacy of the appellant and being a little more discrete, such public disclosures by the respondent even if to the family members are a source of humiliation.”
The court also took note of the wife making allegations of dowry harassment which she was not able to substantiate during the court proceedings. To this effect, the court held that “making frivolous and false allegations against the appellant is another act of cruelty.”
The wife’s unilateral withdrawal from the matrimonial relationship without any apparent reason was deemed as an act of cruelty by the court.
Despite medical evidence showing the husband’s sterility rather than impotency, the court found that the public humiliation inflicted by the wife amounted to mental cruelty. The court had also observed that the husband on the contrary had fulfilled his matrimonial obligations by taking care of the wife during several medical procedures, despite her allegations of dowry harassment.
