Jabalpur, India – In a momentous legal development, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has addressed the sensitive issue of marriage refusal, establishing that both the denial of marriage and the withholding of physical intimacy can be considered forms of mental cruelty, serving as valid grounds for divorce.
The groundbreaking verdict, delivered on January 3 by a division bench comprising Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Vinay Saraf, emerged from a case in which a man sought divorce due to his wife’s unwillingness to continue the marriage and engage in physical relations.
The bench emphasized, “We understand that unilateral refusal to have sexual intercourse for a long period due to physical disability or without a valid reason can amount to mental cruelty.”
Furthermore, the High Court overturned the Family Court’s previous decision, asserting that the lower court had erred in holding that the wife’s failure to consummate the marriage could not be a valid ground for divorce.
According to the details presented in the appeal, the man entered into marriage in July 2006. Subsequently, the wife expressed her refusal to cohabit and continue the marriage, citing her affection for someone else. The petitioner claimed that he went to the United States for work in 2006, after which the wife went to live with her family and never returned. In 2011, the husband filed a divorce petition in the Family Court in Bhopal, which was initially rejected.
This ruling is expected to have implications for future cases, setting a precedent on the acknowledgment of mental cruelty in cases involving denial of physical intimacy within a marriage.
