A husband told the Chhattisgarh High Court that his wife had called him dark and fat, threatened him with false cases, and kept leaving for her parents' home. The court's answer this month is worth reading by anyone on either side of a matrimonial dispute.
The appeal came from Janjgir. Akash Ghosh and Pooja Seet had married on 7 March 2019, and by the husband's account the marriage soured within months. He petitioned the Family Court for divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. His case was that his wife treated him with hostility, insulted him by calling him "dark" and "fat," threatened to implicate him in false cases, and repeatedly went away to her parents' home. The Family Court rejected the petition and allowed the wife's application for the return of her streedhan. The husband appealed under Section 19(1) of the Family Courts Act.
On 18 September, a Division Bench of Justice Parth Prateem Sahu and Justice Sachin Singh Rajput dismissed the appeal, having reserved it on 25 June.
What the Court Held
Though the husband had made several allegations, the bench said, none of them had been substantiated by leading any cogent evidence. Remarks about his complexion or build, even if made, could not be treated as a sufficient ground for divorce. On mental cruelty, the court applied the Supreme Court's framework from Samar Ghosh v. Jaya Ghosh, which holds that there is no fixed test and each case turns on its own facts and evidence. On desertion the court was equally direct: living separately does not by itself amount to desertion. The spouse alleging it must prove that the separation was without reasonable cause and that the other spouse intended to bring the marriage to an end. The husband had proved neither.
Why This Ruling Cuts Both Ways
It would be easy to read this as a judgment against husbands. It is not. It is a judgment about proof, and the standard it applies does not change with the gender of the petitioner. A wife who seeks divorce on cruelty must establish it with the same kind of evidence: specific incidents, dates, witnesses where they exist, documents where they exist. A general account of unhappiness, or a list of adjectives describing the other spouse, is pleading, not proof.
The ruling sits inside a pattern this magazine has followed through the year. Courts have quashed criminal complaints under Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita where the specific acts and dates were missing. They have dismissed divorce petitions where the allegations were vague. The direction is consistent, and it runs in favour of whichever spouse has the better record, not whichever spouse has the louder grievance.
The Practical Lesson
If you are a petitioner, the question to ask before filing is not "was I wronged?" but "what can I prove?" Cruelty and desertion are legal categories with elements, and each element has to be established. A petition that rests on characterisation alone, as this one did, is vulnerable from the start.