Repeated filing of cases and complaints against a spouse can amount to 'cruelty' for the purpose of granting divorce under Hindu Marriage Act a Supreme Court Judgment

The Supreme Court in Sivasankaran vs Santhimeenal observed that repeated filing of cases and complaints against a spouse can amount to 'cruelty' for the purpose of granting divorce under Hindu Marriage Act. In this case, the 'wife' left the company of the 'husband' on the first day of marriage itself. As she refused his plea to live with him, the husband issued notice seeking divorce on the ground of cruelty under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Later, the Trial Court, allowed his divorce petition, on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage. The court noticed that, after filing of divorce petition, the wife had- (1) resorted to filing multiple cases in courts (2) approached the High Court to initiate disciplinary action against the husband, who was working as an Asst. Professor (3) made representations to the college authorities seeking initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him (4) sought information about her husband's remarriage or whether he was living with somebody else, well known to her, and the proceedings were found to be an abuse of the process of the RTI Act (5) lodged a criminal complaint against him under Section 494 IPC (6) complained to the his employer threatening to file a complaint against him, etc. The court noticed that a constitution bench is yet to examine the reference in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan in which issues raised are: (a) what could be the broad parameters for exercise of powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to dissolve the marriage between consenting parties without referring the parties to the family court to wait for the period prescribed under Section 13-B of the Act, and (b) whether the exercise of such jurisdiction under Article 142 should be made at all or whether it should be left to be determined on the facts of each case. The court noticed, in spite of this reference, that there have been various instances where the court has exercised its powers to grant divorce in such circumstances. The case at hand, the court said, is not covered by the questions referred to the constitution bench.