Mumbai: Bombay high court recently upheld the divorce of a Nagpur-based doctor after a ruling that repeated suicide threats by his wife, also a doctor, amounted to cruelty and was a ground for divorce.

“If repeated threats are given by the wife and if preparations for suicide are made, though having no intention to commit, but with an intention to create a pressure or with a view to gain the expected result from the husband, then it amounts to cruelty. Such repeated utterance of committing suicide is a scarecrow to the husband,” said a division bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice Mridula Bhatkar. “If such threats of suicide are given by either of the spouses to the other party then it is definitely shocking and it shatters the basic foundation of trust between the two human beings.”

The judges said that for an educated couple, such threats may lead to the husband fearing that he may be booked under dowry harassment laws. “The husband knows that if his wife commits suicide or attempts to commit suicide, then he will be definitely roped in the offences of Section 304B or 498A of the Indian Penal Code and then continue to live in the shadow of unspoken fear. A solitary instance can be considered as an outburst of anger or frustration. However, if such threats are given intermittently, then the husband definitely suffers a psychological trauma of remaining under the constant fear that his wife is likely to commit suicide if things go against her.”

Both the laws are “protective in nature and take care of the life and interest of women and newly wed brides against ill-treatment and harassment at the hands of the husband and his family members”. Section 498A punishes harassment with a maximum jail term of three years. Under Section 340B, if a married woman dies within seven years of her marriage in suspicious circumstances and it is proved that she was subjected to harassment, then the husband and his relatives may face imprisonment from seven years to life.

Dr Rajesh Patil and Dr Seema Patil married in December 2006. They fought on their honeymoon and she left for her parents’ place. Subsequently, she signed an undertaking to not behave erratically and returned to her matrimonial home. According to Rajesh, there were fights and Seema would threaten suicide. In March 2007, she tried to commit suicide, claimed Rajesh, and a police report was lodged. The couple has been staying separately since.

In his petition, Rajesh claimed Seema had tried to kill herself at the age of 14 after a fight with her mother. HC said this had no bearing on the case, but suicide threats in the three months that the couple lived together weighed with the court. The judges upheld a 2011 family court order granting divorce on grounds of cruelty.

(Names changed to protect the couple’s identity)

