Misusing wife’s cheques amounts to mental cruelty: HC

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: Misusing a spouse’s bank cheques to obtain loan without their knowledge amounts to mental cruelty, the High Court of Karnataka has said. It has upheld the divorce granted to a woman who accused her husband of using her cheques to obtain a loan which she ended up paying for.

Dismissing the husband’s appeal challenging the divorce, the HC said, “The appellant-husband in his written statement and evidence has only denied the allegations of cruelty, however, he has not taken any stand with regard to using of signed cheques of the respondent-wife, which clearly goes to show that the appellant-husband has made the respondent-wife a scapegoat and made her to face criminal proceedings initiated by his creditors.”

This act of the husband, the division bench of Justice G Narendar and Justice Vijaykumar A Patil said, “Have caused humiliation and mental cruelty, which have been properly pleaded and proved by respondent-wife before the Family Court.”

The 52-year-old husband had approached the HC with an appeal in 2017 challenging the judgement of a Family Court in Mysuru.

The Family Court had dismissed his application for restitution of conjugal rights while allowing the application of the wife seeking divorce. The couple was married in 2003 and lived together till 2012. The wife alleged that he was addicted to gambling and alcohol.

Due to his financial constraints he would harass her. Her parents would regularly pay him to avoid social stigma. Allegedly the husband obtained a loan of Rs.20 lakh misusing the signed blank cheques of the wife and squandered the money.

The wife then sold her property to repay the loan and also gave Rs.10.5 lakh to the husband. Later some private persons demanded she repay the loans which her husband had obtained from them issuing cheques signed by her.

In total the wife had paid the husband R s 2 8 lakh. Later, she approached the Family Court seeking divorce. It was granted after the court concluded that she was subject to cruelty.

The HC said that the allegations made by the wife regarding the sale of the property and the loans obtained in her name by the husband have been proved before the Family Court by documentary evidence.

Dismissing the husband’s appeal, the HC said, “The Family Court has recorded a categorical finding that the respondent-wife has proved that the appellant-husband has caused mental cruelty.

“The said finding of the Family Court is based on material on record and they are neither perverse nor contrary to the evidence on record calling for interference in these appeals.”