The main legal point established in the judgment is that persistent ill-conduct over a lengthy period is necessary to establish mental cruelty for the purpose of granting a divorce under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act.

JUDGMENT :

Biswanath Rath, J.

The opposite party-wife is the appellant assailing here the judgment passed by the Judge, Family Court, Cuttack in Civil Proceeding No.04 of 2012 whereby, allowing the application for divorce in favour of the husband/petitioner-the present respondent while considering his application under Section 13(i)(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 vide impugned judgment and order dated 7.05.2012, the marital status between contesting spouses has been snapped.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the respondent/husband filed an application under Section 13(i)(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for grant of divorce with pleadings that the respondent married the appellant/wife on 5.12.2007 following the Hindu rites and customs. The respondent was working in N.S.N Company as HR Executive at Bhubaneswar. Their marriage had taken place on 5.12.2007 and after the marriage both the respondent and the appellant were staying in respondent’s house at Bhubaneswar. The respondent claimed to be the only child of his parents. The respondent alleged that Miss Ayesha Jamal was his distant relation. She was also close to his wife and his wife used to talk with her over mobile for long spell. When both the respondent and appellant were in their honeymoon trip to Thailand on 22.12.2007, his wife talked with Miss Ayesha Jamal for long time resulting his mobile bill up to Rs.17,000/-(Rupees Seventeen thousand only). The respondent then alleged in the application that on their return from honeymoon, the appellant behaved with his family as well as with him abnormally and used to leave the bed late. The appellant was also spending most of her times in bathrooms remaining busy in talking with her friends over telephone closing the door of the bathroom from inside, even at times the appellant was sleeping at nights inside the bathroom while taking on mobile phones. It is also alleged that the appellant was treating the respondent as unfit, impotent and a low paid company employee. The appellant was resisting the foods prepared in his house by cook and also used to make baseless complaints against respondent before her parents and his visitors. On 16.01.2008 she stayed at Cuttack for a month and in every week the appellant used to visit the house of her parents without the consent of either the husband or his parents. Saddening with the behaviour of the appellant her mother breathed her last on 9.04.2008 suffering from severe heart attack. Frustrating with her activities her younger brother also attempted to commit suicide by taking poison. On 9.06.2008 the appellant went to Cuttack with her elder mother and brother taking her clothes and ornaments threatening not to return to respondent’s house any further. She stayed at Cuttack for almost five months and on being forced by her father and brother, the appellant joined the respondent ultimately on 10.11.2008. On 23.09.2009, the appellant gave birth to a male child at Kar Clinic in Bhubaneswar and on 24.10.2009 she went away to Cuttack with the small baby of about a month without consent of her husband or the consent of his family members and from that time the appellant did not return to the house of the husband. While refusing to join the respondent, the appellant lodged a complaint before a NGO namely “Maa Ghara” at Bhubaneswar against her husband and his family members. Following development, in the said matter Mrs. Rutupurna Mohanty of Maa Ghara visited the wife’s house at Cuttack and asked her father to have her treated by a Psychiatrist. It is alleged that the appellant was not only abusing her husband and his mother in obscene languages but also giving threaten to them to put the respondent and his family members behind the Bar by committing suicide or by burning herself. On failure in all his attempts to convince the appellant and following her threatening the respondent on 21.02.2010 made a Station Diary bearing Entry No.512 in Lingaraj Police Station. The husband sent copy of t