A man whose wife alleged that he had an extramarital affair after she found a shayari [poem] in his diary referring to an imaginary person deserves to be granted divorce from her, the Bombay high court said on Monday.
“A serious allegation of an extramarital affair has been made in an absolutely casual manner and is totally unprovoked,” read the judgment. A division bench of justice AP Deshpande and justice RP Sondurbaldota gave the judgment after hearing the case on Monday.
Amit, 47, and Mina, 49, (names changed) were married on July 18, 1991, at Borivli. But the marriage lasted only till June 1992 when Mina left her matrimonial home in Dombivli and started living with her brother in Borivli.
On June 11, 1994, Mina broke into Amit’s house using a duplicate key and took charge of the house, the court recorded in its order. She ousted him from the premises by filing police complaints against him. Amit entered his house again in February 2000 after an interim order.
Mina filed an appeal against the family court’s order granting divorce to Amit. He, however, levelled 11 charges, including cruelty, desertion, and mental illness, against her.
Mina’s act of breaking into Amit’s house and alleging that he was having an extramarital affair were enough to prove the charge of cruelty, the court said. “The appellant [Mina] must have obviously caused tremendous hardship, inconvenience, unnecessary expenses, and mental anguish to the respondent,” the judges said in their order. “Such conduct would definitely constitute cruelty.”
Mina said she wanted to live with Amit, but the court observed that the couple had been living separately for 18 years, of which 10 were under the same roof.
Upholding the family court’s order granting divorce, the judges said, “The conduct of preventing the respondent from entering the matrimonial home is not the conduct of a wife who wants the marriage to be continued. Similar is the conduct of making unprovoked false allegations of an extramarital affair.”
