MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has instructed all courts exercising jurisdiction over matrimonial cases to substitute the names and addresses of parties with 'X' and 'Y' or any such anonymised descriptions in all documents while dealing with cases involving allegations of mental illness. Such allegations, whether ultimately proved or disproved, would cast a long shadow upon the dignity, privacy, reputation and social acceptance of the person concerned, a bench of justices N Anand Venkatesh and KK Ramakrishnan noted.
The bench gave the direction while dismissing an appeal filed by a man challenging the rejection of his divorce petition by a family court in 2024. The couple got married in 2018 but they became estranged within six months. The man alleged that his wife had schizophrenia and sought divorce on the ground of cruelty. However, his wife denied the allegations.
The judges held that mere diagnosis of schizophrenia or mental illness, by itself, is not a ground for dissolution of marriage. "In cases alleging schizophrenia as a ground, the burden lies on the party seeking divorce to establish, by acceptable medical and legal evidence, and the disorder must be shown to be of continuous or recurrent nature and of such intensity that the parties are unable to lead a normal and peaceful matrimonial life, and the spouse seeking relief cannot reasonably be expected to live with the other spouse," they observed.
Holding that the husband failed to substantiate the allegations, they dismissed his appeal.
