Husband Who Travels to Wife's City on Leave, Cohabits With Her, Then Claims She 'Never Lived With Him' Cannot Prove Cruelty: Jharkhand High Court

"When the appellant-husband used to visit Dumka to stay with his wife and consummate with her, how can the ground of not living together and leading conjugal life be raised — it simply means they both were leading conjugal life", Jharkhand High Court has dismissed both appeals filed by a husband seeking divorce on the ground of cruelty and challenging the restitution of conjugal rights decree passed in favour of his wife, holding that a husband who himself visited his wife's city during leave, cohabited with her, and yet claimed she "never lived with him," could not make out a case of cruelty — and that it was the husband, not the wife, who had withdrawn from conjugal society without reasonable cause.

A Division Bench of Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad and Justice Sanjay Prasad, finding no perversity in either finding of the Family Court, also made a significant observation that the wife's refusal to resign from her government job — a job the husband himself had encouraged her to obtain — could not constitute cruelty, particularly when the practical impediment to cohabitation lay in the husband's own ability to seek transfer to Jharkhand.

Two questions arose for determination: first, whether the Family Court's finding that the husband failed to establish cruelty was perverse and warranted interference; and second, whether the decree for restitution of conjugal rights in favour of the wife was sustainable on the evidence.

On the Standard for Appellate Interference — Perversity

The Division Bench commenced by articulating the threshold for appellate interference with findings of fact. Drawing upon the Supreme Court's exposition in Arulvelu v. State, (2009) 10 SCC 206, the Court held that a finding is perverse only when it is arrived at by ignoring or excluding relevant material, or by taking into consideration irrelevant material, or when it so outrageously defies logic as to suffer from the vice of irrationality. A perverse verdict is one that is not only against the weight of evidence but is altogether against the evidence. The husband had to meet this high bar — and the Court found he had not.

On Cruelty — The Husband's Own Conduct Unravelled His Case

The Court examined the husband's primary ground of cruelty — that the wife never lived with him and had separated without reasonable cause. The Family Court's factual findings demolished this narrative on multiple fronts.

First, the husband's own cross-examination admitted that whenever he visited Dumka on leave, he stayed with his wife and consummated the marriage. The Family Court had therefore rightly asked: if the husband himself was visiting Dumka to cohabit with his wife, how could he simultaneously claim she was not living with him? "When the appellant-husband used to visit Dumka to stay with his wife and consummate with her, how can the ground of not living together and leading conjugal life be raised — it simply means they both were leading conjugal life and having cohabitation also," the High Court quoted approvingly.

Second, the documentary evidence was devastating for the husband's case. The wife had produced railway tickets showing her journey from Dumka to Ranchi to Bhubaneshwar (Ext. A, A/1, B), photographs (Ext. C to C/2), her leave application to her employer (Ext. D, D/1), and a guest house bill from Santi Guest House, Angul (Ext. 2) — all proving she had in fact gone to Angul after the restitution decree, but was turned away. One document (Ext. 3/1) revealed injuries on the wife's person, indicating she was tortured at Angul when she had gone to reside with her husband.

Third, the husband's own father admitted in cross-examination that he never wanted the wife in his house as a daughter-in-law and had not permitted her to enter the house after the marriage. The husband himself, posted with the Intelligence Bureau, admitted that a branch of his office was situated at Dumka itself — where his wife was posted — and that he had applied for transfer to Jharkhand, which had been rejected by his department.

Fourth, the Family Court had found — and the High Court affirmed — that the Section 9 suit filed by the husband in 2016 was filed "to create a document for filing a divorce suit" and not out of any genuine desire for restitution. The husband had filed that very suit while physically living with his wife in Dumka.

On the ground of cruelty through the wife's refusal to resign her government job, the Court noted that it was the husband who had instigated the wife to obtain the government job given the family's poor financial condition, and was now using her employment as a weapon. The Family Court had correctly observed that since the wife, being a Jharkhand State employee, could not be transferred out of the State, and since the husband could potentially seek transfer to Jharkhand, the practical solution lay in the husband's own hands. "It is practically not possible for the wife to go and live permanently with her husband unless she resigns from her job or the husband resigns his job — only to get rid of his wife has the suit for divorce been filed, as his father did not like his wife and was not ready to make her enter his house as she is handicapped from one leg," the Family Court had observed, and the High Court endorsed this finding entirely.

The Court found the Family Court's appreciation of evidence to be meticulous and complete, with no element of perversity. Accordingly, the divorce appeal (FA No. 175 of 2023) was dismissed.

On Restitution of Conjugal Rights — The Wife's Decree Upheld

Having dismissed the divorce appeal, the Court turned to the husband's challenge to the restitution decree passed in favour of the wife. The Court recalled the statutory framework under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act — the court grants restitution when one spouse withdraws from the other's society without reasonable excuse, and the burden of proving reasonable excuse lies on the withdrawing spouse.

On the facts, the evidence established that it was the husband who had withdrawn from the wife's company without reasonable cause. The wife had done everything expected of her — she had gone to Angul in November 2018 and in July 2019, had produced railway tickets, leave applications, guest house bills and photographic evidence of her attempts to resume conjugal life, and had suffered injury at the hands of her husband when she went to join him. The High Court noted that the coordinate bench had earlier, in FA No. 510/2018, already deleted the objectionable direction that the wife join the husband on a "permanent basis," recognizing that her government job could not be made a condition for cohabitation.

The restitution decree in favour of the wife was accordingly upheld and the second appeal was also dismissed. Both appeals thus failed entirely.

Date of Decision: 10.04.2026