Refusal to leave ailing mom not cruelty: HC

Refusal to leave ailing mom not cruelty: HC 

Partha.Behera@timesofindia.com 02.09.2026

Raipur: A husband’s refusal to move away from his old and ailing mother cannot, by itself, be treated as cruelty towards his wife, Chhattisgarh HC ruled Monday, observing that marriage does not extinguish a person’s responsibilities towards parents. Justice Naresh Kumar Chandravanshi allowed an appeal filed by a man seeking a divorce from his wife, set aside the trial court’s order dismissing his divorce petition, and dissolved the marriage. The HC noted the wife’s insistence that her husband shift to a different house and held that the demand for a separate matrimonial home could not invariably be characterised as cruelty, as a spouse may have legitimate reasons for seeking independent accommodation. What had to be examined was whether such insistence was justified in the circumstances or amounted to an unreasonable attempt to compel the husband to sever or alter his relationship with his parents, the court observed. In this case, the husband’s mother was “very old and ailing”. The husband’s contention that he was unwilling to distance himself from his mother was “neither unnatural nor unreasonable”, the HC noted. Instead, it reflected a legitimate familial obligation that he was entitled to consider while deciding where to live. The HC further stressed that a matrimonial relationship did not give either spouse an unfettered right to compel the other to renounce or abandon pre-existing familial responsibilities. “Marriage creates a new family, but it does not, by itself, extinguish the moral and legal responsibilities which a person may owe towards aged or infirm parents,” the court stated.