A spouse living in a separate residence doesn't amount to desertion, the Bombay High Court has ruled.
Justice V R Kingaonkar of the HC bench at Aurangabad recently held that in such cases, the husband had to prove a crucial ingredient of animus deserendi-the intention to desert. The court’s order came in a divorce case involving a NRI software engineer, Nitin, and his wife, Meena (names changed), a resident of Jalgaon.
The judge quashed a family court order granting the divorce, calling it "illogical", and acquitted the wife of charges of desertion.
The court also asked the husband to pay the woman Rs 10,000. Nitin had claimed that he lived with Meena only for a few days after their love marriage in 2000. After that, he went to IIT-M to do his MTech. He was posted in different parts of the country and later in the UAE and the US.
"It doesn't stand to reason that the young married girl could have deserted the husband when the marriage was (the) outcome of their previous love affair," said Justice Kingaonkar, adding, "The plight of a young woman in the matrimonial home, in which she was an unwanted person, ought to be duly considered in (a) pragmatic manner."
