The Bombay High Court in Chitra Sachin Mapara vs Sachin Kumar Mapara has held that any pressure on part of the wife on the husband to stay away from his parents without any justifiable cause amounts to cruelty.

Justice RD Dhanuka, while dismissing a second appeal preferred by the wife, observed that it is bound by the Supreme Court decision in Narendra vs K Meena, wherein it was held that the persistent effort of the wife to constrain the husband to be separated from the family would be torturous for the husband and this constitutes an act of cruelty.

The court observed that the wife, in the instant case, never wanted the husband to stay with his parents in the matrimonial house. “Because of the ill-treatment and misbehaviour of the wife with the husband and his parents, the parents of the husband were required to leave the house on the 2nd floor and had to stay with the cousin of the husband for quiet sometime,” the court observed.

The Supreme Court observation in Narendra vs K Meena had invited criticism from various quarters.

The SC bench had observed: ““In normal circumstances, a wife is expected to be with the family of the husband after the marriage. She becomes integral to and forms part of the family of the husband and normally without any justifiable strong reason; she would never insist that her husband should get separated from the family and live only with her…. If a wife makes an attempt to deviate from the normal practice and normal custom of the society, she must have some justifiable reason for that and in this case, we do not find any justifiable reason, except monetary consideration of the Respondent wife. In our opinion, normally, no husband would tolerate this and no son would like to be separated from his old parents and other family members, who are also dependent upon his income.”