Persistent and repeated acts of cruelty by one spouse against the other, causing reasonable apprehension in the mind of the other spouse that it would be harmful and unsafe to live together, constitute grounds for divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act.

( 1 ) THIS second appeal is directed against concurrent judgments and decrees passed by the courts below allowing the petition of the respondent for divorce against the appellant under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The decree for divorce was claimed by the husband (the respondent in this appeal) on the ground that the appellant persistently and repeatedly treated the husband with cruelty. Both the courts below have, on a careful and exhaustive analysis of the evidence on record, accepted the plea of the husband holding that the appellant had, by her repeated acts and omissions, inflicted on the husband considerable mental torture making his life impossible. The trial court allowed the petition and directed dissolution of the marriage between the appellant and the respondent by its decree dated 25-9-78. The appellate court dismissed the appeal of the appellant vide the judgment and decree dated 26-3-81. The second appeal was thereupon filed on 20-7-1981. Nearly seven years elapsed before the second appeal could be taken up for hearing.

( 2 ) I may mention at the outset that before giving decision in the appeal I fixed 31-3-88 to enable the parties to appear before the Court on or before that date for exploring the possibility of reconciliation. I did this in the hope that with the passage of time the attitude of the parties may have undergone some change and that the bitterness which obviously existed between them soon after the marriage, might have lessened, if not forgotten. It was, however, regrettable to find that whereas the husband did appear before me, the wife did not. The impression I gathered from the submissions of the appellants counsel was that she not really interested in any kind of reconciliation. Indeed the fact that she was not prepared to give the matter even a try left me with no option but to dispose of the appeal on merits.

( 3 ) THE divorce petition was filed by the husband on 3-7-73. The relief claimed was that the marriage between the parties be dissolved by a decree of divorce. In the alternative, a decree for judicial separation was also prayed for. Shortly stated, the case set up by the husband was that the marriage was solemnized at Agra on 27-1-72. After the marriage he took care to ensure that the appellant enjoined the necessary comforts of life and respect of the society in which the petitioner moved as an Army Officer. He, however, soon discovered that the appellant was extremely temperamental and obstinate caring precious little for either the feelings or even the basic comforts and convenience of the husband. Several instances of cruelty perpetrated by the wife against the husband were cited in the divorce petition. It is, however, not necessary to elaborate all of them here. But the more serious ones deserve mention. The appellant went about denigrating the husband by spreading a canard that he was having illicit affairs with other girls and was, indeed, living in adultery with a woman named Smt. Kailash Rani Arora, a telephone operator in the Military Exchange. She accused the husband of already having a spouse living with him. These false accusation were made against the husband even in the presence of his friends and relative causing untold mental agony to him quite apart from injuring his prestige and reputation. Not content with this, the appellant also sent false complaints charging him with adultery to his senior officers which resulted in considerable humiliation and harassment to the respondent. Added to all this, was her total refusal to perform her marital obligations. She flatly refused to cohabit with her husband falsely accusing him, inter alia, of having illicit sexual relationship with other girls. It was lastly asserted that the acts of cruelty committed by the appellant against the respondent were so persistent and repeated as caused a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the husband that it would be harmful and injuries for him to live wi