Failure to take care of husband's parents not cruelty: Allahabad HC

‘’Mere failure to take care of aged parents of a spouse that too when the spouse had chosen to live away from his matrimonial home, may never amount to cruelty," the bench said.

In a significant ruling, the Allahabad High Court has said that mere failure to take care of husband's aged parents by the wife is not cruelty.

A division bench comprising Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Donadi Ramesh made the observation while dismissing a petition challenging the decision of the lower court refusing to grant him divorce from his wife on the ground of cruelty.

‘’Mere failure to take care of aged parents of a spouse that too when the spouse had chosen to live away from his matrimonial home, may never amount to cruelty. What exact situation may prevail in each household is not for the Court to examine in detail or to lay down any law or principle in that regard,’’ the bench said in its verdict recently.

‘’Suffice to note that cruelty, though available as a ground for dissolution of marriage, there is no straight jacket formula to establish the same,’’ the court said.

The petitioner had contended that he lived away from his parents owing to his job and had entrusted his wife with the responsibility of taking care of his aged parents.

He contended that his wife did not take care of his aged parents and lived separately which amounted to cruelty. ‘’It is her moral duty to take care of the aged parents of the appellant,’’ he had pleaded.

The court said that the appellant himself set up a case that he used to live separately from the respondent while he expected his wife to stay with her in-laws, all throughout so that the appellant's parents might be well taken care of.

‘’In the first place, the allegation of the daughter-in-law having failed to take care of her in-laws is a subjective fact. What level of care was necessary or required or desirable, was never established by the appellant.

"In any case, no inhuman or cruel behaviour was ever pleaded by the appellant as may have established the allegation of cruelty necessary to be proved for dissolution of marriage,’’ the bench said.