Calcutta High Court Slams Trial Judge For Patriarchal Mindset While Denying Divorce To Husband, Takes Objection To 'Copy-Paste' Orders

The Calcutta High Court has granted divorce to a man on grounds of cruelty by his wife in a 2018 divorce case. The man had been denied divorce by the trial court in an order which was found to be "copy-pasted" from earlier orders by the trial court in matrimonial suits.While finding the trial judge's notions "patriarchal" and "condescending", a division bench of Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Uday Kumar held:"The entire mindset of the learned Trial Judge appears to spring up from a patriarchal and condescending approach, thereby attributing a condescending role to the husband, to advice his wife properly and also to condone cruel acts of the wife by trying to “bridge the gap” between the parties. Such observations have nothing to do with the law on the subject. The settled law in matrimonial disputes is that the court has to look at the conduct of the parties from their perspective and to come to a finding as to whether there is any cruelty, either mental or physical, perpetrated by either of the spouses against the other so as to make it impossible for normal conjugal life to be led together by them."Court noted that the Trial Judge overlooked the fact that the respondent/wife did not adduce any evidence of her own despite having filed a written statement and also did not cross-examine PW1 (the plaintiff/husband). That apart, it transpires even on a cursory perusal of the impugned judgment that the learned Judge proceeded entirely on a tangential perception of his own, without adverting at all to the materials on record.In fact, the bench noted that it had previously come across similar judgments by the same Trial Judge, and in the opinion of the court, "the Trial Judge is in the habit of using the same words and same syntax in judgments passed in respect of different matrimonial suits."It was also observed that many of the repeated observations made by the judge in matrimonial cases had nothing to do with the law on the subject, but was instead borne out of "patriarchal notions."Court observed: There are several other literary jargon used inappropriately and merely to flash the vocabulary of the judge without fitting in the flowery terms in their proper place. The learned Trial Judge even says that, looking at the demeanour of the wife, he thinks “it is not impossible to realize that the relief of feministic instinct what is still left after decay has every chance of reunion with the husband if he is awakened from his sleeping stage of doing vices and vulgarity”. The learned Judge holds that at this stage refusal of it would be “unsagacious and impractical”.It said that the plaintiff-husband has categorically alleged several instances of cruelty. Out of those, the germane allegations pertain to the respondent/wife insulting and defaming the husband in public and imparting within the son of the parties ill-feeling about the appellant/husband.The husband has categorically alleged that the respondent stopped visiting the matrimonial house since the third week of June, 2012. However, subsequently on occasions, it has been alleged that the respondent/wife took information, the court said.Court noted that the wife's denials in the written statement are not coupled with any positive assertion or explanation and are found to be evasive in nature and no explanation was forthcoming in the written statement as to why she stayed back at her parental home and did not return to the matrimonial home and lead a conjugal life with her husband thereafter.Hence, we find that in view of the uncontroverted allegations of the husband having been duly proved in his evidence, the appellant/husband is entitled to a decree for divorce, if not on desertion, on the ground of cruelty, the court held.In taking strong exception to the trial judge's copy-paste order, the court noted: We intend to observe here that we are just stopping short of making any serious adverse comment against the learned Trial Judge, merely because such comment could have an adverse effect on the service career of the learned Judge. However, we expect that the learned Judge concerned shall be aware in future about copy-pasting his previous judgments and in going on his own tangential curve of wishful imagination instead of adverting to the facts and materials on record in the particular case before him. If any future instance of such act on the part of the learned Trial Judge is noticed, the same may be directed to be entered into his service book.Click here to read order

Calcutta High Court Slams Trial Judge For Patriarchal Mindset While Denying Divorce To Husband, Takes Objection To 'Copy-Paste' Orders

Srinjoy Das

Tags