Judge P L Palsingankar, of the Family Court in Bandra, granted divorce to a woman on the grounds that her husband was flirting with their maid, and that “he took the maid’s side in a violent quarrel between the wife and the maid”, ruling that all this caused “immense mental agony to the wife”.The court was hearing a divorce petition filed by a 36-year-old woman against her 37-year-old husband; the couple had married in Pune in 1999, and later shifted to Ghatkopar.The main allegation made by the wife in her petition filed in April 2010 was the poor character of the husband and the fact that he ceased to have any relationship with her for over two years while still living in the same flat. The couple have a 10-yearold daughter.While granting divorce to the wife, the court also restrained the husband from creating any third party rights to the matrimonial flat at Ghatkopar, till the Court Commissioner shares the property between the husband and the wife.This was directed as the court accepted the wife’s contention that she had contributed not only towards the purchase of the property, but towards other expenses as well.This also turned into a reason for denial of maintenance to the wife, as she was earning more than her husband. The husband, however, has been asked to pay Rs 10,000 per month for the daughter’s upbringing.According to the petition, the husband allegedly had an affair with a colleague in Pune, which ended when the wife informed her motherin-law who, in turn called up the other woman’s mother. This resulted in a big fight between the couple, and soon after they shifted to Mumbai.A few months later in 2003, their daughter was born, and as the wife was a working woman, the maid was hired to care for the baby. The husband, who till then worked a day shift, allegedly got his duty changed to night shift. He used to reach home at 4 am and sleep till 12 noon after which, as per the wife’s allegations, he and the maid used to watch movies “in dim lights after putting the baby to sleep”.The wife also alleged that she caught them in a compromising position, and the maid left the job in 2005 after a quarrel with the wife. However, a year later, the husband brought the maid back. In April 2008, the wife and maid had another quarrel which turned violent, with the maid hitting the wife on her head. The wife then turned to her husband, but he allegedly took the maid’s side, telling the wife that she was wrong while the maid was right.The husband denied the allegations, but the court picked holes in his evidence and observed there was nothing in the wife’s cross-examination to shatter her case.The husband also said that an hour after he used to wake, the maid would leave to drop the daughter to school. The court, however, observed that the daughter, at the time, was too young for school.The husband even called the maid as a witness, but the court ruled her testimony as unbelievable due to some inconsistencies in her’s and the husband’s evidence. The court observed that she was a “got up witness, brought only to support the husband’s case” and granted divorce in favour of the wife.