Calling husband 'Hijda' amounts to mental cruelty: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Chandigarh, Oct 22 : The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that a wife calling her husband ‘Hijda’ (transgender) is an act of mental cruelty.

A Division Bench of Justices Sudhir Singh and Jasjit Singh Bedi was hearing a wife’s appeal against the divorce decree granted in favour of her husband by a family court on July 12.

The husband’s mother had deposed that his wife would call her son a ‘Hijda’.

“If the findings recorded by the learned family court, are examined in the light of the … judgments of the Supreme Court, 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 observed.

The couple was married in December 2017. The husband in the divorce plea had alleged that his wife used to wake up late at night and also ask his ailing mother to send her lunch on the first floor from the ground floor.

She used to taunt him for not “being physically fit to compete with her” and had disclosed that she wanted to marry someone else, the plea said.

In response, the wife denied the allegations and instead said she was thrown out of her matrimonial home by the husband.

She also alleged her in-laws had administered her intoxicated medicines due to which she fell unconscious and “during that state, they put a Tabiz from a Tantrik on her neck besides administering her intoxicated water so that they could have control over her”.

In an appeal, the wife said the testimonies of her husband and his mother had wrongly been relied upon by the family court to return a finding of cruelty. It was also submitted that her allegation of administration of intoxicants had wrongly been discarded by terming them self-serving.

However, the High Court observed this allegation had not been substantiated as in respect of the cruelty against her, the wife had not examined her parents or any close relatives.

Also, the court noted that the wife’s petition alleging domestic violence by the husband was dismissed by the trial court.

There is nothing on record to show that the finding has been set aside by the higher court in appeal or revision, it added.