RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh High Court has set aside a Family Court decree dissolving a marriage after finding that the husband failed to prove his allegations that his wife taunted him over his dark complexion, private sector job and professional status.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Parth Prateem Sahu and Justice Sachin Singh Rajput ruled that the husband’s claims were "concocted" and failed to meet the legal standards required to establish mental cruelty or desertion under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
The couple married on February 21, 2019, in Bilaspur. Shortly after the wedding, marital discord surfaced. The husband filed for divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, alleging mental cruelty and desertion.
Central to his petition was the claim that his wife, a government nurse, considered him incompatible with her professional status.
He alleged that she frequently quarrelled with him and his family, refused to cohabit with him, taunted him for having a dark complexion and working in a private firm, and abandoned the matrimonial home on January 7, 2020, without cause. He further accused her of threatening to file false dowry cases.
The Family Court at Bilaspur accepted the husband’s claims on December 12, 2023, and granted a decree of divorce.
The wife subsequently appealed against the verdict in the High Court, contending that she was always willing to reside with her husband and fulfil her matrimonial obligations.
She clarified that her separate residence was purely due to her official posting as a government employee in Dhamdha, Durg, which could not be equated with voluntary desertion.
She further stated that her husband was well aware of her profession before marriage and had accepted it. On the contrary, she alleged that she faced dowry harassment, including demands for ₹5,00,000, her salary and her ATM card.
She also pointed out that she had actively sought a decree for restitution of conjugal rights under Section 9 of the Act to save the marriage, which her husband failed to honour.
Re-evaluating the evidence, the High Court noted that the couple were acquainted and had a mutual liking before marriage.
"The allegation made by the respondent-husband that since the appellant-wife was a nurse by profession, she did not find him compatible to her status... and taunted him regarding his complexion does not appear to have any substance," the Bench observed.
The Court added that if such reservations had existed, the wife would not have agreed to the marriage in the first place.
Finding the Family Court’s decision based on an "erroneous appreciation of evidence", the High Court allowed the wife’s appeal and quashed the divorce decree, ruling that the husband had failed to prove cruelty or desertion.