Chandigarh: In a significant ruling, the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld a divorce granted to a man on the grounds of cruelty, with the court emphasizing that calling a husband a “hijra” (transgender) constituted a severe act of cruelty. The Division Bench, comprising Justice Sudhir Singh and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi, observed while hearing the woman’s appeal against the divorce decree issued by a family court.
The case, reported by Bar and Bench, revolves around the man’s claims that his wife routinely humiliated him by referring to him as a “hijra,” stating that his mother had given birth to a transgender child. The husband’s mother testified in court, corroborating her son’s claims of verbal abuse. The bench noted that such comments, which questioned the husband’s gender identity, amounted to mental cruelty under matrimonial law.
In addition to the insults, the man alleged that his wife was addicted to pornographic content and mobile games. She reportedly pressured him to record the duration of their intimate relations, specifying that their sexual encounters should last for at least 15 minutes and occur three times every night. The husband also alleged that his wife taunted him for not being “physically fit” enough to satisfy her demands and even disclosed her desire to marry someone else.
The wife, however, denied the allegations and offered a different version of events. She claimed that her husband and his family had forcefully evicted her from their matrimonial home. In her defense, she accused her in-laws of administering intoxicating substances and placing a tabiz (amulet) around her neck, allegedly to control her actions.
Despite her arguments, the court upheld the family court’s decision, which had found the wife guilty of cruelty. The High Court also took note of the fact that the couple had been living separately for six years, observing that their marriage had “ruptured beyond repair” and likened it to “dead wood.”
The judgment concludes a bitter legal battle between the estranged couple, marking the end of a marriage that the court deemed irretrievably broken.
