Bombay High Court: Dismissing an appeal to grant divorce on grounds of cruelty, a bench comprising of Hon’ble A.S. Oka and G.S. Patel, JJ. held that a wife’s refusal to quit her job or take transfer to husband’s city, even if promised before marriage, would not amount to cruelty on part of the wife. The husband had sought divorce while the wife petitioned for restitution of conjugal rights both of which were rejected by Family Court, Pune and came up in appeal in the High Court. The main ground for divorce was that the wife did not take transfer from her job as promised and that it amounted to cruelty. The Court held that it was a thoroughly retrograde view which undermined a fundamental premise of parity and equality in marriage, that it was the bounden duty of a wife to extirpate herself from her settled life and job to follow her husband and that her needs, wishes and desires must be relegated to second place, suborned to the husband's personal and family needs and that her identity, as it were, was only as a wife, not as an independent woman with her own job and earning. The Court rejected the wife’s petition for restitution of conjugal rights as she had not even applied for a job transfer till date but held that it was enough to indicate her willingness to continue with the marriage hence it would be incorrect to say that there was cruelty on her part. The Court also refused to grant divorce on grounds of irretrievable breakdown of marriage holding that as an Appellate Court, it did not have the power to do so and only the Supreme Court can exercise this option under Article 142 of the Constitution. [V vs. N, Family Court Appeal No. 125 of 2005, decided on 3rd October, 2013]
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
FAMILY COURT APPEAL NO. 128 OF 2005
V
versus
N
CORAM : A.S. Oka,
& G.S. Patel, JJ.1
https://www.lawweb.in/2013/10/wifes-refusal-to-quit-her-job-or-take.html
