SURAT: A family court here granted a divorce to a 23-year-old sari trader, ruling that he had been subjected to cruelty by his wife, who hid the fact that she had no vision in one eye and threatened him after he found out. After their wedding, the woman was taken to an ophthalmologist after she fell. It was then that the husband learned that she was effectively blind in one eye. When he sought to part ways, she threatened to implicate him in a false case and to kill herself. The court accepted the husband’s suit on grounds of cruelty and granted a divorce decree under Section 13(1)(i-a) of The Hindu Marriage Act. Advocates Vandana Gohil and Jignesh Hariyani filed the suit on July 24, 2023, on behalf of the husband. The petition stated that the couple were engaged in 2017 and married in February 2022 at a village in Amreli. At the time of engagement, the woman’s family had told the man and his family that she wore spectacles of 1.5 diopters in both eyes. After the wedding, the couple moved to Surat. A few days after the wedding, the woman fell. Apprehending a vision issue, the man took her to an optician who advised him to take her to an ophthalmologist, as she had a serious eye condition. The man then took her to a Katargam eye hospital, where the doctor told him that his wife’s left eye required refractive correction of 16 diopters and the nerves in it had completely shrivelled since childhood. The doctor made it clear there was no hope of her regaining vision in that eye. The woman’s family initially refused to accept that she had this problem. They got her examined at an Ahmedabad eye hospital in April 2022. The doctor there told the wife’s family and the man that her left eye number was 17 and there was no chance of her regaining vision in it. When the man’s family remonstrated, the wife’s family finally admitted that they had hidden this fact as she was not getting marriage proposals because of it. The petitioner then sought to end the marriage. The wife allegedly kept threatening him and refused to consent to a divorce. She threatened to frame him and threatened suicide. The family court held that the man had been subjected to immense harassment by his wife’s hostile conduct. The court referred to various judgments of the Supreme Court and high court before ruling in the man’s favour under the provision of The Hindu Marriage Act dealing with cruelty.
