The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that a spouse merely living separately does not amount to desertion. The aggrieved other spouse must prove that the estrangement wasn’t due to ill-treatment meted out by him or her.
Under the Hindu Marriage Act, ‘desertion’ is one of the grounds for seeking divorce. SC had, in certain judgments, held that desertion amounts to cruelty.
Ravi Kumar of Orissa was granted divorce by a family court. His wife Julmi Devi went to the high court (HC), which overturned the family court’s order. Kumar then moved SC, re-seeking divorce.
Dismissing Kumar’s appeal, SC said the trial court ought to have examined whether Devi deserted him because of cruelty. The couple’s daughter had told HC that her father used to beat up her mother. She didn’t know the reasons for her father’s behaviour.
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