However, after going through the material on record, the Court noted that the wife successfully demonstrated that her husband had treated her unequally with his second wife and did not take her proper care of her. The Bench held that the husband even failed to perform his marital obligations towards the first wife.
“As a husband, he is duty bound to maintain the wife even while she was with her parents. If at all he is aggrieved by her separation, then he should have taken measures for reunion and if it failed then on reasonable grounds he could pronounce Talaq. But in the instant case, no such act was done by the husband and in fact he did not maintain the first wife and failed in his duty and has married another woman.”
All these circumstances, the Bench said, prove that the husband meted out several cruelties to his first wife, as a result of which she returned to her parental home.
“Hence, we are of the view that the husband having not treated the first wife and the second wife equally, and the first wife clearly demonstrated the cruelties met out to her by the husband and that he failed to maintain her for two years. We therefore, are of the view that the findings of the Family Court that the husband treated the wife with cruelty and has not treated her on par and equally with the second wife and accordingly granted dissolution of marriage, is well merited and does not warrant interference,” the judgment stated.
With these observations, the Bench dismissed the husband’s appeal.
Source: Barandbench
