Matrimonial disputes have increasingly been landing in courts across India. In one such case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that if a wife calls her husband ‘hijda’ or transgender, it amounts to cruelty to not only the man but also to her mother-in-law. The High Court was hearing the wife’s plea challenging the divorce granted in favour of her husband by a family court earlier this year.
The division bench of Justice Sudhir Singh and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi noted that the wife’s act amounted to cruelty. Her mother-in-law had deposed before the court that the woman used to call her husband a hijda.
“If the findings recorded by the learned Family Court, are examined….it comes out that the acts and conduct of the appellant-wife amounts to cruelty. Firstly, terming the respondent-husband as Hijda (transgender) and calling his mother to have given birth to a transgender, is an act of cruelty,” the Bench said.
According to Bar and Bench, the couple got married in December 2017. In the divorce petition, the husband claimed that his wife would stay up late at night and repeatedly asked his ailing mother to bring her lunch from the ground floor to the first floor. The husband alleged that his wife was addicted to porn and used to force him to record the duration of sex. He alleged that the wife would state that sex ‘must go on for at least 10-15 minutes at a time and that it must be at least thrice per night’.
He also claimed that she used to taunt him for not being physically fit enough to compete with her. According to the husband’s claim, she had expressed willingness to marry someone else. However, the wife had denied all these allegations and claimed that she was thrown out by the husband.
She further claimed that her in-laws gave her medication laced with intoxicants, causing her to lose consciousness. During this time, they allegedly placed a talisman from a Tantrik around her neck and gave her intoxicated water in an attempt to control her. The court observed that the parties had been living separately for the last six years and there is no possibility of a reunion.
