Husband’s Extra-Marital Affair Not Mental Cruelty: SC

The Supreme Court of India. (Photo: Reuters)

Extra-marital affairs of a man and his wife’s suspicion do not always amount to mental cruelty attracting the provision of abetment to suicide but can be a ground for grant of divorce, the Supreme Court said on Friday.

The remarks were made in a case in which a woman committed suicide due to her husband's alleged extra-marital affairs and the other woman too ended her life due to humiliation.

The misery did not end here and later the mother and brother of the man’s alleged paramour also committed suicide.

The apex court was dealing with an appeal filed by the man against his conviction and four-year sentence for causing harassment and mental cruelty to his wife which led her to commit suicide.

A bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy held that "extra-marital relationship would be an illegal or immoral act, but other ingredients are to be brought home so that it would constitute a criminal offence."

It added that there is no denial of the fact that cruelty need not be physical but a mental torture or abnormal behaviour that amounts to cruelty or harassment in a given case and it will depend upon the facts of the said case.

(With PTI inputs)