CHENNAI: Inducing a spouse to live beyond means and inviting indebtedness amounts to cruelty, said the Madras High Court recently while granting divorce to an NRI man. This can be termed as lack of feelings for the welfare of the other spouse (husband), observed the division bench of Justices T Raja and D Bharatha Chakravarthy.
The bench was passing the orders on an appeal against rejection of divorce filed by Venugopal Raghavan. It further said acts of the respondent/wife would depict that she is more interested in her husband’s assets than love, hence, her callous attitude amounts to cruelty. The matter pertains to an appeal seeking to set aside the order of a family court and praying for divorce filed by Raghavan. In 1997, he married Vani. The couple lived in Saudi Arabia and separated in 2012.
Raghavan’s main accusations against Vani are: lavish spending and cheating him of Rs 43.20 lakh under the pretext of paying for inheriting family property among others. When Raghavan approached the Additional Family Court-I in Chennai, his plea for granting divorce was rejected in 2020.
Subsequently, he filed the writ appeal before the High Court. The allegations made against each other and the counter affidavit shows that living together is out of question and directing them to live under one roof is not possible, it noted.