The Patna High Court has made an interesting observation regarding an estranged couple’s use of offensive language, stating that it does not amount to “cruelty.” The remarks were made by Justice Bibek Chaudhuri, a single-judge bench, during the hearing of a petition filed by Sahdeo Gupta and his son Naresh Kumar Gupta, residents of Bokaro in Jharkhand.
The father-son duo had challenged a court order in Bihar’s Nalanda district, which stemmed from a complaint filed by Naresh Gupta’s former wife in Nawada, her hometown. The complaint, dating back to 1994, accused her husband and father-in-law of subjecting her to physical and mental torture in their demand for a car as dowry.
Upon the father-son duo’s request, the case was later transferred from Nawada to Nalanda. In 2008, they were handed a one-year rigorous imprisonment by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, and their appeal before the Additional Sessions Court was rejected a decade later. Meanwhile, the couple obtained a divorce from the Jharkhand High Court.
The divorced woman’s advocate argued against the petition filed before the Patna High Court, highlighting that her client, “a lady in the 21st century,” was subjected to derogatory terms like “bhoot” (ghost) and “pishach” (vampire) by her in-laws, which constituted a form of extreme cruelty.
However, the court expressed its inability to accept such an argument. It acknowledged instances of both spouses using offensive language in failed matrimonial relationships but emphasized that not all such accusations qualify as cruelty.
While the court recognized that the woman had experienced harassment and brutal torture by all the accused individuals, it noted the absence of specific and distinct allegations against the petitioners.
Consequently, the judgments passed by the lower courts were quashed, with no order regarding costs being issued. This decision by the Patna High Court sheds light on the interpretation of cruelty in divorce cases involving verbal exchanges and sets a precedent for future legal proceedings.
