In today’s society, man-woman friendship can’t be construed as illicit relationship: HC
Times of India | 8 February 2025
Kolkata: Friendship between a man and a woman in today's society could not be construed as an illicit relationship, Calcutta High Court said while granting divorce to a man whose wife filed seven police complaints against him over the past decade accusing him of being in a physical relationship with an office colleague.
A division bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Justice Uday Kumar granted the divorce on the grounds that mere allegations without corroboration by an independent witness or documents do not stand. "Such serious allegations themselves constitute cruelty, particularly when read in the context of the marriage between the parties having irretrievably broken down for at least over a decade," the bench held.
Noting that the wife was a teacher for persons with mental disabilities and the husband employed with a reputable institution, the HC observed that it was evident that both hailed from "an educated background and an enlightened section of society." "In such a backdrop, mere friendship between the husband and his office colleague and the closeness between such friends at the time of the husband's surgery (during which he was having constant conflict at home with the respondent/wife and was under the guillotine of a pending criminal case at the instance of the wife) being perceived to be an illicit sexual relationship... is unacceptable," the HC division bench said. It added that without any corroboration by an independent witness, the allegation must be held to be baseless.
The tension between the couple started within three years of marriage on Aug 15, 2007. In 2010, the wife filed a complaint with Thakurpukur police under sections 498A and 406 of IPC but withdrew it within a month. In 2012, she filed a petition disputing a police closure report and revived the complaint after the husband filed a suit for restitution of conjugal rights. They lived together from Sept 2012 to July 2014, during which they had a daughter, but the wife never withdrew the criminal complaint.
The wife lodged another police complaint in Oct 2017 saying her husband was staying away from her and a fourth in Jan 2018 seeking the husband's return. The man's father also lodged a complaint against his son in Feb 2018 and another in May 2018 along with his daughter-in-law. The HC observed that "much weight could not be lent to the father's complaints since he was all along under Damocles' sword as there was a pending criminal case against him (the first 498A case filed in 2010) by the daughter-in-law."
The wife lodged more complaints against the husband in Jan 2020 and March 2021.
The HC bench said that forcing the parties to live together in such an acrimonious atmosphere "would be perpetrating cruelty on both" and, borrowing the principle laid down by the Supreme Court, it would be in the interest of both parties and society to dissolve the marriage by construing such breakdown of marriage beyond repair.
The husband was represented in the HC by Rajdeep Mantha and Zohaib Rauf.
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