Ill-treating your step child is "mental cruelty" and hence a ground for divorce, a Mumbai family court at Bandra has ruled. In a judgement delivered last week, Judge Laxman Magdum granted divorce to a 39-year-old Bandra resident from her 42-year-old California-based husband. One of the main grounds for seeking divorce was the humiliation and ill treatment meted to her daughter from her first marriage, by her second husband and his parents.
According to the case filed by the complainant in July 2010, her second marriage was solemnised as per Hindu vedic rites and customs in January 2004 in Los Angeles, California. According to the petition, it was a love marriage and at the time, the complainant had made it clear that her daughter will have to be treated properly. The petition said the husband promised to treat the daughter as his own and only then did the couple go ahead with the wedding. Post marriage, she shifted to LA along with her daughter.
Soon afterwards, however, the complainant realised that her husband was "extremely unhappy and feeling insecure". This was followed by her daughter's humiliation, causing extreme mental torture to her as well as her daughter, said her petition.
The petition also alleges that this was followed by abuses to her (petitioner-lady) and casting aspersions on her character. The situation gradually worsened and the daughter became so unhappy and insecure that she insisted to return to India and stay with her mother's parents.
Finally, she came back to India in October the same year (2004) and started staying with her parents along with her daughter. A little later, the husband came down from the US and stayed with them for about a month. Till September 2006, he kept coming to India once every few months, but continued to cast aspersions regarding his wife's character and hurl abuses at her.
In September 2006, he stopped coming to India and the complainant petitioned for divorce, stating that he deserted her.
The complainant then adduced evidence regarding her daughter by filing an affidavit on her behalf. In this affidavit, the daughter reiterated all allegations levelled by her mother against the husband and his parents. She further stated that they were not allowed to go outside without the permission of her step-father.
Despite several notices to the husband, no one from his side came to dispute the allegations. The family court then examined the details of the evidence filed by the complainant and granted her divorce
