Last update:November 14, 2024, 8:30 p.m. IST

The HC bench said that Section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act does not make the mere existence of a mental disorder, whatever its degree, sufficient in law to justify the dissolution of a marriage.

The Allahabad HC made the observations in an appeal filed by a man seeking divorce from his wife, citing her alleged mental illness and prolonged separation since 2012. (Representational image: News18)

The Allahabad High Court recently observed that allegations of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, alone are not sufficient to dissolve a marriage under Section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act without conclusive proof of severity.

Section 13 (1) (iii) of the Act does not make the mere existence of a mental disorder, whatever its degree, sufficient in law to justify the dissolution of a marriage, a bench of Justices has ruled Rajan Roy and Om Prakash Shukla.

The court said that the contest in which the ideas of insanity and mental disorder appear in the article as a ground for dissolution of a marriage, requires an assessment of the degree of mental disorder and its degree must be such that the spouse seeking relief cannot reasonably be expected to live with the other.

“Not all mental anomalies are recognized as grounds for granting a judgment,” observed the bench. She added that the personality disintegration that characterizes schizophrenia can be of varying degrees and that not all schizophrenics are characterized by the same intensity of illness.

“The burden of proof of the existence of the required degree of mental disorder rests with the spouse who bases his or her claim on such a health problem,” the court said.

The submissions were made in an appeal filed by a man seeking a divorce from his wife, citing her alleged mental illness and prolonged separation since 2012. He initially filed a divorce action in the family court , arguing that his wife suffered from schizophrenia, which caused her to act erratically, creating significant distress in their marriage.

The man further claimed that his wife’s medical condition, which her family did not disclose before their marriage in 2003, led to behavior that posed a risk to herself and others. Defending in family court, the wife disputed her husband’s allegations denying any history of mental illness and claiming the affair was fabricated to justify the divorce.

She alleged that she was harassed by the man’s family over dowry demands and described herself as having fulfilled her marital responsibilities until she was finally thrown out of the house. She argued that her husband intentionally fabricated the mental illness claims to justify the divorce.

The family court rejected the divorce petition, finding that the man had not provided enough evidence to support allegations of abandonment, cruelty or mental illness serious enough to make the marriage unsustainable. On appeal, the High Court considered the evidence, including the fact that the wife did not appear to contest the matter.

The division bench also noted the long separation between the couple and referred to relevant Supreme Court precedents, emphasizing that cruelty can encompass unintentional actions that create an untenable marital environment.

The court held that the facts of the case revealed that there was willful desertion of the wife without any plausible reason, which was sufficient to enter a decree of divorce in favor of the husband. However, the court upheld the opinion of the Family Court that the husband had failed to prove the seriousness and degree of the wife’s alleged illness to grant the divorce on this ground. As a result, she overturned the family court’s decision to dismiss the divorce action and dissolved the marriage.

Location :

Allahabad Cantonment, India