The duty of the court to encourage reconciliation, the admissibility of electronic records, and the grounds for divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act were central legal principles established in the judgment.

K.Kannan, J.

1. I. Grounds for divorce by husband that found acceptance

The appeal is at the instance of the wife against the decree of divorce granted in favour of the husband. The husband had at least 6 reasons to give for justifying his plea for dissolution of marriage: (i) the wife, who was .a Canadian citizen had immediate close relatives living abroad, and had after the marriage left for Canada without the consent of the husband;

(ii) she had been taking anti-depression drugs and was suffering from some ailments which were not disclosed to him;

(iii) she- had forced a separate residence from his parents after her return to India and caused mental cruelty to him;

(iv) she had caused physical assaults on him on 15.04.2003 that required medical treatment with the doctor;

(v) she had indulged in character assassination of the husband by falsely insinuating that he had extra marital relationship and was particularly proximate to a colleague in office by name Rajni Mahajan; and

(vi) she had taken away the articles from the house suggesting that she was no longer interested in leaving with the company of the husband and exhibiting the intention to desert the husband.

2. There were denials to each one of the aspects by the wife and she had a justification or explanation to the grounds urged by the husband. The trial Court, however, rejected the evidence and found the grounds urged by the husband to be fully established and granted a divorce in the manner sought for.

II. The predominant grounds for immediate consideration

3. The appellant, who had the benefit of counsel presented her case in person with vehemence that each one of the vital considerations wrought by the trial Court were deflected away from appropriate legal reasoning and betrayed a lopsided approach without sifting the evidence in the light of the details brought through documents produced at the trial by the wife. Of the allegations, the issue relating to the wife taking anti depression drugs or that she had taken away the articles from the house or even the suggestion that she had left for Canada without the consent of the husband, even if they were taken as established would not prove any form of cruelty except that they might be taken up with other factors for inference of the general deteriorating relationship between parties. They may not be themselves sufficient to establish any element of cruelty that could justify a dissolution of marriage. Many of the issues for adjudication could be considered in the context of communications brought through emails but the trial Court discarded them entirely on account of the fact that the husband objected to their admissibility. There could be no reluctance to admit evidence that is generated in electronic form in these heydays of advancement of information technology. The giant strides that are taking place in the field of science cannot be lost to the legal system to access through evidence brought in electronic form. The relevant provisions of law are, therefore, examined to provide a theoretical legal basis for admission of records.

III. Admissibility of emails.The relevant legal provisions

4. As observed above several communications between parties have taken place through e-mails, when the wife was in Canada and the husband was in India. The text of communications has enormous bearing to test the respective conduct of parties. All the email communications have been marked without being exhibited as evidence since the author of the emails (in this case, the husband) objected through counsel for the exhibition of the records. It must be noticed that email is a generation of record in an electronic form. The relevant sections of Information Technology Act are reproduced here:

2. Definitions

(r) "electronic form" with reference to information means any information generated, sent, received or stored in media, magnetic, optical, computer memory, micro film, computer generated micro fiche or similar device;

(t)