Divorce — Mental Cruelty · 20 November 2025

X v. Y: Delhi High Court Grants Divorce, Finds Wife's Post-Litigation Criminal Allegations Lacked Contemporaneous Support

High Court of Delhi · 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1559

A husband sought divorce on the ground of cruelty, alleging that his wife had insisted on living separately from his elderly parents, demanded a house be put in her name, repeatedly made abusive remarks about his mother, refused physical relations, threatened to implicate him and his family in false criminal cases, and eventually left the matrimonial home with her belongings and refused to resume cohabitation despite his efforts at reconciliation. The Family Court dismissed his petition. On appeal, the wife alleged, among other things, that her father-in-law had attempted to molest her — an allegation for which no complaint, FIR, or protective action had been taken at the time it was said to have occurred, only surfacing after the husband had already filed for divorce.

The Delhi High Court allowed the husband's appeal and granted the divorce. It found his testimony about the wife's conduct consistent and largely unshaken in cross-examination, and held that the wife's belated criminal allegations — raised only after the divorce petition was filed, without any contemporaneous complaint — could not outweigh that consistent evidence. The Court observed that an allegation as serious as attempted molestation by a close family member, once made, effectively forecloses any realistic possibility of the couple resuming matrimonial life together, and that dissolving the marriage was a recognition the relationship had broken down beyond repair rather than a victory for either side.

More about this case →