SC: False charges of domestic violence ground for divorce

NEW DELHI: If a wife makes false allegations of domestic violence against her husband, it would amount to cruelty, a valid ground for divorce, the Supreme Court said on Monday.

“The allegation that the husband was instigated to keep her (wife) at home as an unpaid servant is a disturbing allegation when viewed from the spectrum of gender sensitivity and any sensitive person would be hurt when his behaviour has remotely not reflected that attitude,” said a bench of Justice SJ Mukopadhyaya and Justice Dipak Misra, granting divorce to a Karnataka-based doctor.

The bench upheld the divorce granted by the state HC and dis- missed the wife’s appeal challenging it. The husband sought divorce on the grounds that his wife had falsely implicating him and his family in a domestic violence case by claiming she was prevented from pursuing higher studies and was kept as an unpaid servant in the matrimonial home.

“It is her (wife) allegation that the sister and brother-in-law of the husband were pressurising him not to allow the wife to prosecute higher studies and to keep her as unpaid servant. On evaluation of evidence it is demonstrable that the wife admitted that the husband had given his consent for her higher education and, in fact, assisted her,” the bench observed.

It even found the wife’s decision to refrain from inviting the husband for the naming ceremony of their child to be an act of cruelty.