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RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh high court has observed that a woman’s repeated threats of dying by suicide amounts to mental cruelty towards her husband. Also, attempts at ‘self-harm’ and persistent pressure on the husband to convert his religion, too, amounted to mental cruelty, the court noted.A division bench of Justices Rajani Dubey and Amitendra Kishore Prasad on Thursday made the observations while upholding a family court order that granted divorce to a resident of Balod district in Chhattisgarh. The wife had challenged the June 2024 order.The bench stressed that cruelty isn’t physical alone and can include “conduct causing reasonable apprehension in the petitioner’s mind.”The court noted that the husband had lodged a written complaint with Gurur police station in Balod district on Oct 14, 2019, reporting multiple suicide threats by his wife — including attempts to consume poison, stab herself with knife and set herself ablaze by pouring kerosene. He stated that he lived in constant fear. They were married in May 2018.The bench recorded that in cross-examination, the husband admitted he had left his wife at her parental home because he feared she may harm herself. “The wife’s repeated suicide attempts and threats created a situation of sustained mental harassment for the husband,” the court observed, adding that such conduct “satisfies the legal test of cruelty”. The HC took note of a testimony from a community representative who stated that the wife and her family pressed the husband to adopt Islam, an allegation the appellant denied.The bench found the parties had been living separately since Nov 2019 and the wife did not return despite multiple attempts by the husband and village elders. While the wife argued she always wished to resume cohabitation and the husband sought divorce only after she filed cases under Section 125 CrPC and the Domestic Violence Act, the court held that the overall evidence showed she had deserted him without just cause.
