Delhi High Court Upholds Divorce Over Wife’s Abusive Messages, Terms Conduct Grave Mental Cruelty

Overview

• The division bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar dismissed the wife’s appeal and affirmed the 2023 Family Court decree.
• Judges cited specific messages dated May 9, May 15, and June 27, 2011, which questioned the husband’s legitimacy and maligned his mother, as decisive evidence.
• The court emphasized that words and communications are not innocuous and that persistent, degrading abuse can constitute mental cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act.
• The bench rejected the wife’s claim that the husband sent the texts to himself from her phone, calling the explanation inherently improbable and unsupported by the record.
• The parties are anonymised in X v. Y (MAT.APP.(F.C.) 2/2024), with reports noting the wife is an IRTS officer and the husband an advocate who married in 2010 and separated in 2011.