Court sets aside family court order rejecting wife’s divorce plea; says her testimony cannot be dismissed for lack of police complaint
A husband’s alleged assaults and harassment cannot be brushed aside merely because his wife did not lodge a police complaint, the Jharkhand High Court has ruled, setting aside a family court order that had rejected a woman’s divorce petition despite her account of abuse. Allowing the woman’s appeal, a division bench of Justices Sujit Narayan Prasad and Sanjay Prasad held that the absence of a criminal case alone cannot make a wife’s testimony unreliable. Courts deciding matrimonial disputes must properly assess the victim’s statement and other available evidence before arriving at a conclusion on cruelty.
The case involved a woman who alleged that her husband frequently beat and abused her after consuming alcohol and harassed her for money. She said his behaviour became more violent after his father’s death in 2015, while he also stopped working and failed to support the family.
The couple married in Jamshedpur in October 2010 and have two children. The wife alleged that she was forced out of her matrimonial home with both children in March 2018. She subsequently moved to her parental home and took up a private job to meet their expenses. She sought divorce under the Special Marriage Act on grounds of cruelty and desertion. Although the husband did not appear before the family court despite receiving notice, her petition was rejected, primarily because she had not lodged a criminal complaint over the alleged assault and harassment.
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