Mental Cruelty And Breakdown Of Marriage – The Daily Guardian

Recently, the Kerala High Court granted divorce to a couple on the ground of cruelty under the Divorce Act, 1869 . Two interesting issues emerge from this judgment – (i) the manner in which the court went about examining whether a case of mental cruelty was made out (ii) the need to recognize irretrievable breakdown of marriage as a ground for divorce.

While examining the issue of cruelty, the Court referred to various judgment of the Supreme Court to hold that determination of cruelty is on a case by case basis depending on the type of life the parties are accustomed to as well as their socio-economic conditions. The Court also reiterated an important point that intention is not an essential element to prove cruelty if “by ordinary sense in human affairs, the act complained of could otherwise be regarded as cruelty”.

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Malvika Rajkotia

Malavika Rajkotia is an attorney with about 31 years of experience in a wide range of practice areas. She has developed a focus on family and property law, and also takes up issues pertaining to civil liberties and environmental law. Her personal interests are theatre where she has been active, having done about 30 Hindi and English productions as also a television law based serial called “Bhanwar”. She anchored the first Hindi Television Talk show in India called Shakti, which focused on women’s rights. She also works with various NGOs like Sakshi and IFSHA on civil liberties and human rights issues.

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