JUDGMENT :

A. MUHAMED MUSTAQUE, J.

1. These appeals are between the same parties. Mat. Appeal No. 43/2020 is filed by the wife challenging the decree of divorce granted in favour of the respondent-husband on the ground of cruelty. Mat. Appeal No. 72/2020 was filed by the husband challenging the dismissal of his petition for permanent custody of the child born in the wedlock with the respondent-wife. The parties are hereinafter referred with reference to their marital status.

2. The parties are Christians. Their marriage was solemnized on 30.04.2015. The husband is an Engineer by profession and the wife is a Dentist holding post-graduate degree. At the time of marriage, the wife was a postgraduate student in Kannur and the appellant was working as an Assistant Professor in an Engineering College in Parippally, Thiruvananthapuram. We, after hearing the counsel for the appellant and going through the pleadings and evidence threshold, are of the opinion that the parties never developed any emotional bond or intimacy. Perhaps, the reason that they were living at distant places at the time of marriage had hampered developing such bonding. The marital relationship is built over the period, b