New Delhi: Rajasthan high court refuses to dissolve elderly couple’s marriage
The Rajasthan high court has refused to dissolve the marriage of an elderly couple married for 58 years, saying trivial irritations and quarrels happen in all families and do not constitute cruelty for a divorce decree.
A bench of justices Anil Kumar Upman and Sudesh Bansal passed the verdict on Friday, upholding a Bharatpur family court’s order. It noted the couple has three children, two sons and one daughter, who have also attained majority and got married. “Even if we presume that some family issues, pertaining to property dispute or mismatch of understanding, among the family members would have been cropped up, but same may not be accepted as sufficient to break the marriage of an old couple, who have admittedly enjoyed and lived their married life together from 1967 to 2013, without any complaint against each other,” the court said.
The court noted the husband, a 75-year-old retired principal of a government school, filed the divorce petition in 2014, months after his wife filed a case against him over alleged dowry harassment, criminal breach of trust, and voluntarily causing hurt.
The police exonerated the husband even as he filed the divorce petition, citing humiliation and disrepute. He said police called him twice, and that his wife was inclined to transfer their immovable property in the name of the eldest son, whereas he wanted to divide it among his sons.
The husband argued his wife was under the influence of their eldest son and did not care for him, and did not even arrange a meal for him.
The wife accused the husband of several extra-marital affairs and pushing and throwing her out, forcing her to file a case.
The family court found allegations against the husband of having relations with other women and giving them money to be true. But it noted that the husband had not levelled any allegation of cruelty against his wife before 2013, and therefore, there was no dispute between the two until then.
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