A spouse cannot build a divorce on a separation he himself caused. In Bhadar Singh v. Indra Devi (F.A.O. (F.C.) No. 3 of 2019, 2026:HHC:41819, decided 29 September 2026), a Division Bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court — Justices Ajay Mohan Goel and Yogesh Jaswal — dismissed a husband's appeal against the refusal of divorce on grounds of cruelty and desertion. The clinching material was his own signature: compromise deeds of 2012 and 2014 in which he admitted beating his wife, confining her to a cowshed adjacent to the house, and denying her access to a toilet. A magistrate's order under the Domestic Violence Act, granting her ₹5,000 monthly and restraining further violence, completed the picture.
The marriage and the allegations
The parties married in 1990. Decades later, the husband petitioned for divorce alleging cruelty and desertion: the wife, he said, had abandoned her marital duties and lived separately for more than twenty-three years. The wife’s answer reframed the entire narrative — she had been physically abused, forced to live in a cowshed adjoining the house without basic facilities, and denied access to a toilet, all while remaining on the same property.
The Family Court dismissed the petition, and the husband appealed under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act.
What decided the appeal
Against that record, the Bench held, the cruelty in the marriage was the husband’s; the wife’s living apart — in truth, her banishment to the cowshed — was neither desertion nor cruelty by her. The dismissal of the divorce petition was affirmed.
The doctrine underneath: no advantage of one’s own wrong
Section 23(1)(a) of the Hindu Marriage Act requires the court, before granting any relief, to be satisfied that the petitioner is not taking advantage of his or her own wrong. It converts matrimonial fault grounds into a two-way inquiry:
Lessons for litigants
Documents outlive intentions. Compromise deeds signed to buy peace in criminal or panchayat proceedings are admissions that will be read years later in the Family Court. They should never be signed casually, and never without advice on their downstream effect.
Parallel proceedings speak to each other. Orders in DV Act cases, maintenance findings, and criminal outcomes all feed the matrimonial record. A litigation strategy that treats each forum in isolation invariably leaks.
Long separation is an argument, not a ground. Until Parliament enacts irretrievable breakdown, decades apart do not by themselves dissolve a marriage — and a spouse whose own cruelty caused the estrangement is the last person who can rely on it.
The decision does not leave such marriages frozen forever: mutual consent divorce remains available where both spouses agree on terms, and the Supreme Court can dissolve genuinely dead marriages under Article 142 with fair provision for the disadvantaged spouse.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can long separation alone justify divorce on desertion?
No. Desertion under the Hindu Marriage Act requires both the fact of separation and the intention to abandon the marriage without reasonable cause. Where the wife left, or lived apart, because of the husband's violence or exclusion, the separation is with cause — and the deserting spouse in law may well be the one who made cohabitation impossible.
What weight do compromise or settlement deeds carry in matrimonial trials?
Considerable weight, as admissions. A signed compromise recording that one spouse assaulted the other or denied basic amenities can be proved against its maker. In this case the deeds functioned as the husband's own admissions of cruelty, destroying his case that the wife was the wrongdoer.
How did the Domestic Violence Act order affect the divorce case?
The magistrate's order granting the wife monetary relief and a protection order was treated as a prior judicial determination consistent with her account — evidence that she was the victim seeking statutory protection, not an aggressor. Findings and orders in DV proceedings routinely surface in later matrimonial litigation.
Can a spouse who is at fault ever obtain divorce?
Under the fault theory of the Hindu Marriage Act, a petitioner cannot take advantage of his or her own wrong (Section 23). Irretrievable breakdown is not a statutory ground before High Courts; only the Supreme Court, under Article 142, dissolves marriages on that basis in appropriate cases — usually with financial protection for the respondent spouse.