CHENNAI: Overturning the order of a family court which refused to dissolve a marriage, the Madras High Court has granted divorce to a hearing and speech impaired person after finding him suffering at his wife’s hand who had gone to the extreme extent of locking him up in the bathroom.
A division bench of justices M Dhandapani and AD Maria Clete passed the orders while allowing an appeal filed by the husband, hailing from Karaikal in Puducherry Union Territory, praying for setting aside the May 22, 2020 order of the Family Court in Karaikal, which dismissed his divorce petition.
The appellant’s marriage with the respondent, who is from Nagapattinam, was solemnized on Sep. 8, 2013 as per Hindu rites and customs. The couple was blessed with a male child. In the meantime, they developed a misunderstanding and the respondent refused to live with him; since then, she had been staying with her parents.
According to the appellant’s counsel, he was even ready to desert his mother a mentally-ill sister, to continue the matrimonial life but she was not ready for it. Subsequently, he filed the divorce petition in 2017.
Stating that the appellant was a hearing and speech-impaired person, the counsel submitted that his wife subjected him to torture by locking him up in the bathroom.
Further, he noted that she had categorically stated, during cross-examination in the Family Court, that she was not interested in continuing the matrimonial life.
However, the respondent’s counsel contended that such a statement did not mean she was not having the intention to live with him and the statement could not be taken as a ground for dissolving the marriage.
Referring to the statement of the respondent during the cross-examination, the bench said such statement itself makes it ‘very clear’ that she was “not interested” in living with her husband.
“Further, it is alleged that the respondent (wife) had locked the appellant (husband) inside the bathroom. When such being the position, forcing the appellant and the respondent to live together- that too, when she herself had stated that she is not interested in living with him- is not sustainable,” the bench said in the recent order.
Holding the Family Court’s order “perverse” and is “liable to be set aside”, the bench ordered dissolution of the marriage.
