Factual Background 

In the case of X v. Y a request for a divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 by the appellant against the respondent on the grounds of cruelty on her part. Due to the respondent’s cruelty, the appellant filed a petition for the dissolution of their marriage; the respondent did not show up in court. Due to the appellant’s inability to substantiate the allegations, the Family Court rejected the petition. The respondent, who was married in 2015, was mentally unstable and refused to live together or finish the marriage. She told the appellant about her condition when she was staying at the family house and asked for money to pay for treatment. The responder conducted an ultrasound exam, which limited her ability to become a mother since it found cysts in her uterus and no eggs. The respondent refused to live with the appellant, a 24-year-old male, or become a mother, notwithstanding the appellant’s claims that he required cohabitation and wanted to start a family.

Analysis of Court order 

The Patna High Court Division Bench, composed of P.B. Bajanthri and Jitendra Kumar, dismissed the appeal from the challenged Family Court judgement and ruled that infertility was ineligible as a reason to dissolve a marriage.

The accusation that the respondent refused to live with the appellant was the only instance of cruelty the Court identified in the case. The appellant maintained contact with her even after going back to her parents’ house, therefore the court did not find these accusations to be credible. The appellant’s claim that the husband had refused to cohabit was unfounded since he had not initiated any legal action to restore their conjugal rights as provided for in Section 9 of the HMA. The option of using desertion as a basis for divorce was also disallowed by the court because desertion must have occurred continuously for at least two years before the filing of the current petition.

The appellant’s inability to become pregnant owing to a cyst in her uterus was determined by the court to be neither impotence nor a reason to dissolve the marriage. The court made the case that the other spouse owed it to the marriage to cooperate and put up with the circumstances. The court also stated that infertility was not a sign of impotence and may be a feature of marriage, and parties might turn to alternative options including adoption. The court determined that the Family Court had properly dismissed the appellant’s marriage case and rejected the appeal as lacking any merit.

CASE NAME – X v. Y, 2023 SCC OnLine Pat 2247