The judgment establishes the requirement for expert evidence to prove mental disorder under section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and emphasizes the Court's discretion in evaluating such evidence.

T.V. Nalawade, J.

1. Both the appeals are filed by the husband. Family Court Appeal No.7/2013 is filed against the decision given by the Family Court Judge, Aurangabad in Petition bearing No. A-233/2011 which was filed by the husband for dissolution of the marriage under the provision of section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The petition is dismissed by the trial Court. Family Court Appeal No.8/2013 is filed against the decision given in Petition bearing No. A-449/2011 by the same learned Judge in favour of the wife by which a decree of restitution of conjugal right is given under section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The trial Court has decided both the petitions by common judgment. Both the sides are heard.

2. The marriage between the parties took place on 25-6-2007. They have one son who was born on 12-7-2009. The petition for divorce was filed by the husband on 18-7- 2011 and the wife filed the proceeding under section 9 of the Act on 30-12-2011.

3. The husband is employed in a software company from Pune and he is B.E., M.B.A. The wife is B.Sc. (Computer) and M.C.A. It was arranged marriage. At the time of marriage the wife was also working in one software company from Aurangabad. She started cohabiting with the husband in Aurangabad in a house where the husband and his mother were living. The husband used to come to Aurangabad on Saturday and Sunday. It appears that for some time before filing of the proceedings they had cohabited at Pune.

4. For making out the ground of mental disorder, the husband had made following contentions:

(i) The wife was not doing any household work and her conduct was showing inconsistency;

(ii) she preferred to have lonely life and she was not mixing up with relatives and others. They had tried to convince her to keep social contacts but she avoided to do it;

(iii) she had developed forgetfulness and on one occasion in October 2008 when she went to beauty parlour due to insistence of mother-in-law, she left two gold rings in the beauty parlour and after returning home the mother-in-law guessed that probably she had left the rings in the beauty parlour and the rings were found there. In similar manner she used to bring bag of flour belonging to others from the flour mill in stead of bringing own bag. Similarly she was not able to remember the roads from Aurangabad to Pune and she was not able to quote or remember songs of movie which was seen by her in theatre;

(iv) in the night time she used to talk with herself and many times she used to talk with presumption that son Anish was sitting by her side when he actually was not by her side;

(v) in March 2008 when a sister of the wife namely Vaishali had come to the house of the husband for staying there for few days with her 2 year old son, the wife had not opened the door even when the door bell was kept ringing by the sister for some time. When door was opened by the mother-in-law and she questioned the wife as to why she had not opened the door, she started quarreling with the mother-in-law and even rushed at her. When Vaishali tried to intervene she was also insulted by the wife. On the next day when husband of Vaishali learnt about the incident and asked the wife, the respondent to say sorry she refused to say sorry;

(vi) she used to pick up quarrels with Kavita, the wife of her brother-in-law and she used to unnecessarily say that Kavita was not pregnant but she was pretending to be pregnant;

(vii) on 9-4-2011 when the mental condition of the wife was found to be much disturbed the father of the wife and the husband decided to take her to psychiatrist Dr. Kale, she picked up quarrels by saying that she was not insane and near the dispensary of Dr. Kale she started shouting and saying that she was ready to go to Dr. Vaidya. After returning from there she took the key of the four wheeler by saying that she wanted to have outing and when the husband tried to prevent he she started running here and there;

(viii) on 11-4-2011 when