Vague, unsubstantiated allegations of cruelty cannot establish entitlement to divorce.

The appellant-wife challenged the dismissal of her petition in H.M.O.P. No. 622 of 2007, by which she had sought dissolution of marriage on the ground of cruelty.

The parties married on 16 June 1999 according to Hindu rites and had two children.

The wife alleged that the husband was alcoholic, used abusive language, physically assaulted her with a cane and nylon rope, demanded money for purchasing property, suspected her fidelity, and compelled her to leave the matrimonial home in April 2006 when her parents did not pay the alleged balance amount of ₹2,19,000.

She lodged a police complaint on 9 July 2006, while the husband subsequently filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights in H.M.O.P. No. 44 of 2007.

The husband denied cruelty and alleged that the wife had an illicit relationship with his step-sister’s husband, had eloped, and had deserted him and their two children.

The Family Court, after recording the evidence of the parties and their witnesses, dismissed the wife’s petition, holding that cruelty was not proved and that she had deserted the husband and children without valid reason.

1. Whether the wife proved that the husband had subjected her to matrimonial cruelty so as to justify dissolution of the marriage.

2. Whether the Family Court was justified in rejecting the wife’s allegations of cruelty and in treating her departure from the matrimonial home, leaving the minor children behind, as a matrimonial wrong.

The Court applied the statutory matrimonial remedy of divorce on the ground of cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act, as invoked in H.M.O.P. No. 622 of 2007.

It applied the principle that allegations of matrimonial cruelty must be pleaded and proved through specific, credible and material particulars; vague allegations, unsupported by dates, circumstances or corroborative evidence, are insufficient.

The Court also considered the evidentiary consequence of the wife’s failure to cross-examine the husband on the alleged acts of cruelty and the circumstances surrounding her departure from the matrimonial home.

The Court found that the wife’s pleadings and chief-examination contained only general assertions that the husband abused and beat her, without identifying the dates, months, years or specific circumstances of the alleged incidents.

Her failure to cross-examine the husband regarding the alleged acts of cruelty further weakened her case and, in the Court’s view, indicated that the allegations were vague and unsupported.

The Court also considered it significant that she had left the matrimonial home while the children were aged approximately five and three years and had thereafter not visited them; it reasoned that, if the husband were an abusive or dangerous person, she would not ordinarily have left the children in his custody.

On the evidence, the Court therefore accepted the Family Court’s conclusion that cruelty by the husband had not been established and that the wife’s conduct in leaving the husband and minor children constituted a matrimonial wrong.

The order of the Family Court, Coimbatore, dated 28 May 2013, was affirmed, the civil miscellaneous appeal was dismissed, and no costs were awarded.