Jharkhand HC: temple trips and anniversary photos cannot erase cruelty, wife wins appeal
A division bench led by Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad set aside a Palamau Family Court judgment that refused a wife divorce, holding that pilgrimages, photographs and a husband later offering to take her back do not cancel cruelty proved through the whole course of the marriage.
A Family Court that dismissed a wife’s divorce petition leaned heavily on the couple’s trips to Vaishno Devi, Ujjain and Darjeeling, the Jharkhand High Court has found. It set the judgment aside. Outings, photographs and festival visits, it held, cannot cancel cruelty that the rest of the evidence shows.
Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad wrote the judgment for a division bench that also included Justice Akhil Kumar. They allowed First Appeal No. 273 of 2026, filed by Kumari Anjali of Daltonganj in Palamau district against her husband, Vikash Choudhary of Ranchi.
A registered marriage, then a second ceremony
The appeal was filed under Section 19(1) of the Family Courts Act, 1984. It challenged a judgment of 30 April 2026 and a decree of 7 May 2026 by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Palamau, in Original Suit No. 61 of 2022.
That court had dismissed her petition under Section 13(1)(i-a) and (i-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which seeks divorce for cruelty and desertion. The Family Judge framed four issues, the third being whether she was entitled to a decree on those grounds.
The couple married on 15 February 2015 and registered the marriage in Ranchi on 25 May 2015. The husband said it was a love marriage. His parents, he said, came to Ranchi in September 2015 and abused him, after which the wife went with him to Mahila Police Station, Ranchi, and complained against her own parents.
That produced a compromise. A second, social wedding followed at Daltonganj on 27 February 2016, with both families present. The wife accepted in cross-examination that the first marriage was solemnised secretly and that the police complaint carried her signature, though she said he had taken it by force.
Dowry demands and sold jewellery
In her plaint the wife said the cruelty began early. She said her husband abused her and her family without cause and tortured her physically and mentally. She said that on 9 August 2019 he deserted her at her parents’ home.
Her evidence went further. She said he demanded Rs 5,00,000 in cash and a four-wheeler, and beat her over small matters. She said ornaments worth Rs 10,00,000, given by her family, were sold by him and that he kept her clothes. She said he repeatedly spoke of divorce and ousted her from the marital home.
Her maternal uncle and her mother backed this account in affidavits. They spoke of the dowry demand, the ornaments, threats and several panchayats that she said had failed to change his conduct.
In cross-examination the uncle could not give the day, date or month of any dowry demand, and had not been present at any panchayat. The mother said no police complaint was ever registered over the assault she described, and she had no proof of her daughter’s treatment.
The husband’s answer: trips and a counter-suit
The husband admitted the marriage but denied cruelty. He said the wife never meant to live with his family, wanted a separate room and threatened him with false dowry and domestic violence cases. He said she left for her parents’ home on 20 March 2020 and refused to return.
He also relied on shared outings. The couple went to Vaishno Devi in 2015, 2016 and 2017, to Ujjain in 2019, and to Kolkata and Darjeeling in 2020. He said he attended her family’s festivals and anniversaries, and tried to bring her back.
He also said that when he refused divorce at the mediation centre in Ranchi, her parents had a criminal complaint filed against him. That case, No. 2037 of 2022, covers Sections 323, 379, 498A, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, and he is on bail in it.
He had filed his own suit under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act for restitution of conjugal rights. It was transferred to Daltonganj as Original Suit No. 07 of 2023. The wife told the High Court that the same Family Court had dismissed it, finding that she had reasonable excuse for staying away.
Arguments in the High Court
Mr. Amit Kumar Chaturvedi appeared for the wife. He argued that the Family Judge had not weighed her evidence, that the husband had forced her to live at her parents’ home, and that there was no chance of settlement.
Mr. Arbind Kumar appeared for the husband. He argued that the Family Judge had examined the evidence and found the allegations untrue, and that the wife was herself cruel and had deserted him without cause.
Six witnesses and a thin paper trail
The wife examined herself, her uncle and her mother, and exhibited no document. The husband examined himself, his brother-in-law and his sister. He produced a wedding invitation card, photographs and medical papers of Dr. Shobha Chakravorty, Ranchi, which were marked for identification only.
Under cross-examination the husband conceded that he had filed no tickets for the Vaishno Devi trips and no proof of a stay there. His photographs carried no dates. He had also not produced the Mahila Police Station compromise papers, saying they were with his wife.
He admitted that she had lived at her parents’ home continuously since 20 March 2020. He also admitted that his Section 9 petition was filed after her divorce suit was already pending.
How the bench tested cruelty
The bench began with the limits of a first appeal. Section 19 of the Family Courts Act allows an appeal on facts and law, and the High Court may re-examine all the evidence, as the Supreme Court said in Jagdish Singh v. Madhuri Devi.
Perversity is a high threshold, it added, and a different reading of the evidence is not enough. It cited Arulvelu v. State and Damodar Lal v. Sohan Devi for that.
On the standard of proof, the judges said a Hindu Marriage Act case is not a criminal trial. Preponderance of probabilities is enough, and the Supreme Court has said proof beyond doubt does not belong in matters as delicate as a husband and wife.
On cruelty, the bench ran through a long line of Supreme Court rulings, from Dr. N.G. Dastane to Joydeep Majumdar v. Bharti Jaiswal Majumdar. Cruelty has no fixed definition, may be mental or physical, and depends on the parties’ social setting. It must be grave, and everyday friction does not count.
The bench framed four points, of which the second asked:
“Whether the conduct of the respondent-husband, as established from the evidence on record, amounts to matrimonial cruelty within the meaning of Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955?” (para 54)
Why the photographs did not settle it
The judges accepted that the cross-examination had shown a few things. The couple married by choice, the families later joined in a social wedding, and the two had made religious and recreational trips. None of that, they said, proved that no cruelty was ever committed.
A marriage can look cordial on some days while one spouse suffers humiliation and harassment on others. The bench held that visits to temples, family functions and festival photographs cannot automatically neutralise other acts of cruelty.
“does not necessarily exclude the possibility of cruelty” (para 127)
The judges said the husband had leaned on the trips but could not document them. His admissions on the missing tickets, photographs without dates and unproduced compromise papers weakened that case. The wife’s evidence, backed by her uncle and mother, had to be read as a whole.
The Family Court, they found, gave considerable weight to the travel and social events without asking whether her married life, viewed in its entirety, caused her sustained mental agony. Its finding that she had not proved cruelty, without a cumulative assessment, could not stand.
Offer to take her back is no answer
The husband had said in evidence that he still wanted to keep his wife with respect. The bench said that cannot obliterate conduct that has already taken place. Cruelty has to be judged across the whole relationship, not by a later offer to resume living together.
It added that a wife cannot be compelled to return merely because her husband says he is willing to take her back. The court must first ask whether her withdrawal from the marital home had reasonable grounds.
The dismissed restitution suit
The bench gave weight to the husband’s own suit under Section 9. If the Family Court’s judgment in Original Suit No. 07 of 2023 is on the appellate record in certified form, the judges said, its findings on why she withdrew from his society are a relevant circumstance.
They noted that dismissal of a Section 9 petition does not by itself prove a ground for divorce under Section 13. But findings on how she came to leave, they said, cannot be ignored in weighing the rival claims.
Reasonable cause to leave, and cruelty proved
On desertion, the judges recalled that Section 13(1)(ib) requires abandonment for at least two years before the petition, without reasonable cause or consent. The deserting spouse must intend to end cohabitation permanently, they said, and the deserted spouse’s conduct must not give reasonable cause for leaving.
The wife said cruelty and harassment over dowry had forced her out, while the husband said she left voluntarily. The bench concluded that she was compelled to leave the matrimonial house for reasonable cause, and has lived at her parents’ home since 2020.
On cumulative evidence, it held that the wife had proved cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia). It said the Family Court’s rejection of her claim for dissolution on cruelty and desertion suffered from an error in appreciating the evidence and called for interference.
Order
The High Court set aside the Family Court’s judgment of 30 April 2026 and decree of 7 May 2026 in Original Suit No. 61 of 2022. The appeal “stands allowed”, and pending interlocutory applications were disposed of.
The operative paragraphs direct the office to proceed accordingly. They do not set out the terms of a decree of divorce. Judgment was reserved on 6 October 2026 and pronounced on 5 November 2026.