Seeking maintenance from the husband is a legal right of the wife and the same cannot be termed as cruelty," the Karnataka High Court has ruled. The HC delivered the judgment while dismissing an appeal filed by a Mysore-based man seeking divorce from his wife of 23 years on grounds of cruelty.
The husband (51) was fighting round three of a legal battle seeking divorce from his wife (43) after a Family Court in Mysore had dismissed his pleas in 1998 and 2008. He filed the HC appeal in 2008 challenging the Family Court's refusal to grant him divorce on grounds of cruelty and desertion.
The Family Court had also dismissed the wife's petition seeking restitution of conjugal rights in 1998, but had
allowed her petitions seeking enhancement of maintenance from the husband. The husband contended in the HC that the act of filing various petitions seeking enhancement of maintenance amounted to cruelty from the wife.
On February 5, a division bench of Justices K L Manjunath and Ravi Malimath noted: "We are unable to accept such a contention. The only ground urged by the counsel of the appellant (husband) is based on the petitions filed against him. What is exercised by the wife is a legal right to seek enhancement of maintenance. The same could not amount to cruelty in any manner whatsoever."
The judges also noted that husband's appeal seeking divorce on grounds of cruelty and desertion couldn't be entertained as it has been rejected twice by the Family Court. "The question of the husband filing a second petition on the same ground is not maintainable," noted the judges.
In his appeal, the man contended before the HC that although they were married since November 1991, his wife stayed with him only for 72 days. "She was highly possessive and never adjusted with my family. She left the matrimonial home in March 1992 and refused to return," he told the court.
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