False Allegation Of Impotency Against Husband Is Cruelty Under Hindu Marriage Act: Delhi High Court

New Delhi: A false allegation of impotency against the husband in the written submissions, even if made as a ‘counter-allegation’, amounts to cruelty by the wife under the Hindu Marriage Act, Delhi High Court has held in a judgment passed by a Division Bench of Justices Manmohan and Sanjeev Narula, Bar and Bench reported.

The judgment was passed in a case where a woman had alleged in a Family Court that her husband was suffering from impotency/erectile dysfunction due to which the marriage had remained non-consummated.

However, she sought the setting aside of the divorce order in the High Court and said she wanted to save the matrimonial alliance. The husband contended that the false allegations made against him amounted to cruelty and no self-respecting person would continue in a matrimonial alliance with such a partner, the report added.

The High Court rejected the wife’s allegations on the basis of the testimony of an expert witness who upon physical examination found the husband to be a normal male adult with no problem of impotence.

The court held that such a false allegation amounted to mental cruelty within the meaning of Section 13(1) (ia) of the HMA.