RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh High Court has granted divorce to a husband after holding that persistent litigation by an estranged spouse, including repeated prosecution of the husband’s family and challenges to their acquittals, can amount to matrimonial cruelty causing severe mental agony and distress.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Parth Prateem Sahu and Justice Sushma Sawant set aside an August 2019 order of the Katghora Family Court and dissolved the marriage between Vishambhar Prasad Rathore and Manisha Rathore, solemnised on June 2, 2015.
The husband, an engineer formerly based in Bangalore, had approached the Family Court under Section 13(1)(ia) and (iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, seeking divorce on grounds of cruelty and the wife’s alleged undisclosed psychiatric illness. He alleged that she lived with him for brief periods, behaved aggressively, slapped him, hurled verbal abuse and refused to adjust in the matrimonial home.
The wife denied the allegations and contended that her husband and his family had subjected her to physical and mental harassment over an unmet dowry demand of Rs 5 lakh.
The Family Court dismissed the husband’s petition in August 2019, holding that he had failed to substantiate specific instances of cruelty or establish that his wife suffered from an incurable mental illness. He then appealed before the High Court.
During the proceedings, it emerged that the wife had filed a criminal case under Section 498-A, read with Section 34 of the IPC, against the husband and six of his family members. In December 2023, the Judicial Magistrate First Class at Katghora acquitted all seven accused.
The wife subsequently challenged the acquittal, but the Sessions Court dismissed her criminal appeal in March 2025. Separately, her complaint under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was dismissed by a Magistrate in March 2024, and the Sessions Court rejected her appeal in August 2024.
Taking note of the course of the litigation, the High Court observed, “Cruelty is a matter of conduct, not gender. Matrimonial law does not presume that only one spouse is capable of committing cruelty.”
The High Court held that the wife’s continued pursuit of the legal proceedings demonstrated a calculated effort to harass and distress the husband and that he had established cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act.
The Bench accordingly allowed the appeal and dissolved the marriage.