Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has held that unsubstantiated allegations that a wife had suicidal tendencies, displayed abnormal behaviour and insisted that her husband live at her parental home under the ‘illatom’ arrangement could not constitute cruelty warranting divorce.
Dismissing the husband’s appeal for divorce after nearly nine years of its pendency, the court ruled that allegations of cruelty must be supported by credible evidence and that petty quarrels and trivial disputes between spouses did not amount to mental cruelty.
A division bench of Justice K. Lakshman and Justice K. Sujana observed that the conduct alleged must be “grave and weighty” enough to make it unreasonable to expect one spouse to live with the other. It must be more serious than the ordinary wear and tear of married life, the bench said.
The bench was dealing with an appeal filed in 2017 by the husband against the judgment of the Family Court, which had rejected his request to grant divorce on grounds of the cruelty and mental torture. The wife had filed cases under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act against the husband on the grounds of harassment and demanding additional dowry, after their children were born. The husband filed the divorce petition in 2012 against this backdrop.
The wife a petition for restitution of conjugal rights petition in the same year, 2012. The Family Court dismissed the husband`s petition in 2017 following which he approached the High Court .
The bench held that although the husband had levelled several allegations of cruelty against his wife, he had failed to substantiate any of them with credible evidence. The bench also reiterated that the cumulative effect of the parties’ conduct must be considered while determining cruelty, rather than assessing isolated incidents in a vacuum.
The bench noted that the couple had been living separately for around 14 years. and one of their children was now 16 years old. Under the circumstances of the case, the husband did not establish the grave and serious conduct required to grant divorce on the ground of cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
Pending Criminal Cases, Settlement Pleas No Bar to ED Summons Under PMLA: Telangana High Court
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has held that the pendency of criminal cases relating to alleged bank fraud would not prevent the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from issuing summons under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, when the alleged offences fell within the list of scheduled offences under the Act.
The court also ruled that a borrower’s willingness to repay the outstanding loan or a pending application for a one-time settlement (OTS) could not, by itself, be a ground to quash the summons issued by the ED.
Stating this, Justice J. Sreenivas Rao dismissed a criminal petition filed by Paruchuri Kumar alias Kanuganti Suresh Kumar and his wife challenging the summons issued by the ED for inquiry. Both the Central Crime Station (CCS) police and the CBI had filed FIRs against them on alleged fraud of `4.82 crores by obtaining loans from SBI with fabricated papers of properties which were mortgaged at another bank. They obtained the loan reportedly for construction works of Kshatriya Happy Homes at Bahadurpura from their company Kshatriya Constructions.
The criminal cases were pending on allegations of holding two identities, namely Paruchuri Kumar S/o. P. Raju as per his Aadhaar Card, and Kanuganti Suresh Kumar S/o. Kanuganti Rajendra Kumar as per his Election Commission of India (EPIC) identity card, and in conspiracy with his submitting fake and forged property documents to the bank and availing a loan of `5.1 crores and cheating the bank to the extent of `4.82 crore. The other allegation was that the properties offered as collateral security standing in the name of the wife were falsely represented to be free of encumbrance, whereas they were mortgaged with a cooperative urban bank.
Meanwhile, ED authorities alleged that during investigations it was found that the proceeds were transferred to the personal savings accounts of the accused, which constituted ‘proceeds of crime’ within the meaning of PMLA. Hence, the ED initiated the proceedings by summoning them. Challenging the summons, the accused petitioners approached the High Court, stating that the criminal cases were pending and that they had challenged the FIR. They further contended that their application for OTS was pending. The High Court rejected their contentions by mentioning precedents in such cases.
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