Derogatory Complaints to Spouse’s Employer Amount to Cruelty: Delhi HC

The order, however, highlighted both parties were expected to show due respect to each other. Irrespective of the merits of these complaints, and regardless of whether the allegations made therein were false or true, we find that making such derogatory and defamatory remarks in the form of complaints to the employer of the spouse are nothing but cruelty, the bench said.

The order termed "tolerance, adjustment and mutual respect" to be the foundations of a "sound and healthy marriage". Dismissing the woman's appeal, the court upheld a family court order of divorce to the husband on the ground of cruelty by the wife. The couple married in 1989 and had two children before separating in 2010-11.

The wife moved the high court against the divorce decree and claimed her estranged husband resorted to various illegal measures to forcibly evict her and their children from the matrimonial home. The high court observed the allegations of adultery levelled by the parties against each other.

Both the woman and the man accused each other of adultery. The court said the woman's complaints to her husband's employer, particulary about the unfounded allegation of adultery, can't be used to address the issues of any wrong done to her for his employer had no role. The order noted that the woman's complaints were made to harass the husband and humiliate him before his colleagues at workplace.

The bench said the family court rightly dissolved the marriage between the parties by upholding the allegations of cruelty based on the man's evidence. The fact that the parties have been living separately for a long time period of time, that is, around fifteen years now, without any resumption of marital cohabitation between the parties, can also be considered as an added ground while deciding the divorce petition, the court said.