Living separately for job not cruelty or desertion, can’t be grounds for divorce: Allahabad High Court

Lucknow: In a significant judgement, the Allahabad High Court has said that staying separately for a job by the parties was neither cruelty nor desertion and can’t be grounds for divorce.

A division bench comprising Justices Sumitra Dayal Singh and Donadi Ramesh gave the ruling recently while rejecting a petition filed by a man challenging the decision of the Kanpur Family Court which had rejected his application for divorce on this ground.

The petitioner had contended that the parties had been living separately for the past 21 years. At the relevant time, the appellant was working as a Loco Pilot at Jhansi, whereas the respondent (wife) got selected as a primary teacher in the year 2000. She got posted at a school in Auraiya district, which was barely two kilometers away from the ancestral home of the appellant.

The husband later filed a suit for divorce in the year 2007, on the ground of desertion and cruelty.

The respondent disputed that claim and said that her husband had visited her when she was hospitalized. The appellant had also visited the school with the respondent when medical leave was granted to the respondent.

The court observed that the place of posting of the wife was barely two kilometers away from the ancestral home of the appellant and that it was difficult to disbelieve that she had obtained posting at District Auriaya with full knowledge and consent of the appellant.

‘’Merely because the parties may have remained separated for the reason of their separate jobs with one working at Jhansi and the other at Auraiya, the fact of desertion may never be sustained on the strength of such vocational/employment compulsion faced by the parties,’’ it said.