BEFORE THE MADURAI BENCH OF MADRAS HIGH COURT

Reserved on : 05.11.2025 Pronounced on : 09.01.2026

CORAM:

THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE P.VELMURUGAN

and

THE HONOURABLE MRS.JUSTICE L.VICTORIA GOWRI

C.M.A.(MD)No.628 of 2021

Suganyadevi ... Appellant / Respondent

Vs.

M.Veerapandi ... Respondent / Petitioner PRAYER: Civil Miscellaneous Appeal filed under Section 19(1) of the Family Court Act, 1984, to set aside the judgement and decree dated 17.02.2020 in H.M.O.P.No.224 of 2018 on the file of the learned Family

Court, Sivagangai.

For Appellant : Mr.K.P.Ramesh For Respondent : Mr.G.Jeremiah

JUDGMENT

(Judgment of the Court was made by L.VICTORIA GOWRI, J.)

This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is directed against the judgment and decree dated 17.02.2020 passed in H.M.O.P. No.224 of 2018 by the learned Family Court, Sivagangai, whereby the marriage between the appellant and the respondent solemnised on 27.08.2015 was dissolved on the ground of cruelty under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

2. The appellant before this Court is the respondent-wife in H.M.O.P. No.224 of 2018 and the respondent herein is the petitioner-

husband.

3. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as “husband” and “wife”.

Factual Background:

4. The admitted facts are that the marriage between the husband and the wife was solemnised on 27.08.2015 at Arulmigu Sri Pushpavaneswarar Soundaranayagi Amman Temple, Thirupuvanam, as per Hindu rites and customs, in the presence of relatives and elders of both families.

5. Out of the said wedlock, a female child by name Mithra was born on 20.08.2016. The birth of the child is evidenced by Ex.P2, the birth certificate. After marriage, both parties resided together at Chennai, where the husband was employed as a Software Engineer.

Husband’s Case before the learned Family Court:

6. The husband filed H.M.O.P. No.224 of 2018 before the learned Family Court, Sivagangai, seeking dissolution of marriage on the ground of cruelty. According to the husband, after the marriage, the parties set up their matrimonial home at Chennai. Within a short period, the wife allegedly started troubling the husband, prevented him from attending to his work peacefully and subjected him to various forms of mental cruelty at the instigation of her parents.

7. It is the husband’s case that when his aged mother came to stay with them at Chennai for a day during the third month of marriage, the wife instructed him not to speak, smile at, or attend to his mother and picked up quarrels over trivial issues. On the day when he went to the railway station to send off his mother and returned home, the wife allegedly questioned him angrily and objected to his act of accompanying his mother. When he explained that it was his filial duty, the wife is said to have threatened that if he did not obey her, she would write his name and end her life.

8. The husband further alleged that the wife insisted on going to her parental home at odd hours and compelled him to send her immediately, thereby causing him mental disturbance. According to him, the wife abused him in degrading language and threatened that if she were to live with him, he should cut off all ties with his parents.

9. It is further stated that during the first Deepavali after marriage, when the parties had gone to the wife’s parental home, the husband purchased clothes for his own mother. The wife allegedly objected to the same, spoke to him disrespectfully, left alone and returned to Chennai. Thereafter, on the same day, the wife allegedly drove the husband out of the house on Thalai Deepavali day, forcing him to return to his mother’s house in distress.

10. The husband has also averred that he had taken a bank loan to meet the marriage expenses and was repaying the same in instalments. The wife, however, insulted him stating that he was not even capable of meeting his own marriage expenses and taunted that such a person was unfit to have a wife and children. She is said to have pulled his shirt collar