Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has held that repeated suicide threats, abusive conduct and intimidation through false legal action amount to mental cruelty and is sufficient to dissolve a marriage, upholding a family court’s divorce decree that had been challenged by the wife.
A division bench of Justices K Lakshman and BR Madhusudhan Rao dismissed the appeal, finding no illegality or perversity in the 2016 order of the Family Court at LB Nagar that had granted divorce to the husband.
The couple had married in 1999 at Annavaram Temple under Hindu customs and have twin children born in 2001. The marriage broke down over the years, with the husband approaching the family court seeking divorce on grounds of mental cruelty.
Before the High Court, the husband contended that his wife spent excessive time on phone calls with unknown persons, causing frequent quarrels and disturbances at their residence. He produced call data records covering several months to substantiate his claims and examined an independent witness whose testimony, he argued, corroborated the pattern of conflict.
The witness also supported the husband’s allegation that the wife had repeatedly threatened suicide as a means of pressuring him.
The wife denied the allegations in their entirety, contending instead that she had been subjected to ill-treatment. She alleged that her husband frequently stayed away from home, returned in an intoxicated state and failed to fulfil his marital responsibilities. While she did not dispute the existence of marital discord, she contested the specific allegations relating to her conduct and phone usage.
The bench found the husband’s account consistent and backed by documentary evidence, including the call records and independent witness testimony.
Writing for the bench, Justice Lakshman observed that conduct of this nature causes deep emotional distress and creates an atmosphere of fear and instability within a marriage, making it unreasonable to expect the aggrieved spouse to continue the relationship.The court further held that mental cruelty need not be established through physical violence alone and can be inferred from a sustained pattern of behaviour over time. The appeal was accordingly dismissed.
