RANCHI: In a significant judgment, the Jharkhand High Court has ruled that a wife concealing crucial facts such as her age and criminal background before marriage constitutes mental cruelty towards the husband.
The court, while delivering the order, stated that continuing the marital relationship is impossible under such circumstances.
Rejecting an appeal filed by a woman against the Gumla Family Court's divorce order, the division bench of Justices Sujit Narayan Prasad and AK Rai upheld the lower court's decision.
After examining the evidence on record, the bench held that the family court’s findings did not suffer from perversity. The HC stated that the lower court's verdict was neither arbitrary nor contrary to the evidence.
Emphasising that marriage is based on trust, the court held that concealing important facts at the outset amounts to mental cruelty to the spouse.
"Relationship of wife and husband is based on trust and respect for each other, and if it is broken, it is non-repairable as the trust is the foundation of marriage. Marriage is a relationship built on mutual trust, companionship and shared experiences," the court observed.
The court was hearing a plea filed by Ranthi Kumari Devi, against a divorce order passed by a family court in Gumla.
According to the plea filed in the family court by Devi's husband, Suresh Kumar Sahu, the former had concealed her real age and information related to her criminal background before their marriage in April, 2015.
Kumar Sahu alleged that his wife's real age was 40, when she had claimed it to be 27 at the time of the marriage. He also claimed that Devi had concealed the fact that she had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, and was out on bail at the time of marriage.
According to Kumar Sahu, soon after the marriage, differences surfaced between him and Devi, compelling him to approach the family court seeking dissolution of marriage on the ground of cruelty.
He alleged that the marriage itself was vitiated by the suppression of crucial facts by Devi.
Kumar Sahu also alleged that Devi threatened to implicate him and his family in false cases after the marriage.
Devi however, denied the allegations in both courts. In her plea in the HC, she claimed that her age and details regarding the criminal case were fully disclosed to Kumar Sahu before their marriage. She also alleged that she had been falsely implicated in the murder case.
She further alleged that Kumar Sahu had concealed the fact that he had already contracted two marriages before marrying her and that she was subjected to harassment after the wedding.
However, the HC dismissed the wife's appeal and upheld the September 2022 judgment of Gumla Family Court, which had dissolved the marriage between the couple under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.