Mental cruelty in matrimonial law is a course of conduct, and few courses of conduct have been examined by courts as often as the sustained, unexplained refusal of conjugal relations. In Smt. Lakshmi Choudhary v. Gajendra Choudhary (D.B. Civil Miscellaneous Appeal Nos. 1319/2024 and 1308/2024, decided on 6 October 2026), a Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur — Justice Yogendra Kumar Purohit and Justice Munnuri Laxman — affirmed a Family Court decree dissolving a 2018 marriage, finding that the wife's unilateral refusal of physical relations almost from the outset, together with threats of suicide, constituted mental cruelty under Section 13(1)(ia) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
Two decrees, two appeals, one outcome
The Family Court at Jaisalmer had decided the husband\'s divorce petition under Section 13(1)(ia) and the connected petition under Section 9 together, granting divorce on the ground of cruelty and declining restitution. The wife appealed both results. The Division Bench examined the record — including the husband\'s consistent testimony that conjugal relations ceased within weeks of the marriage, the exhibited suicide note, and the wife\'s own admissions in cross-examination — and dismissed both appeals, affirming the trial court\'s findings as grounded in evidence and law.
How the cruelty finding was built
The suicide-threat dimension
Threats of suicide occupy a distinct place in cruelty jurisprudence. They weaponise the criminal consequences that follow an unnatural death in a matrimonial home, and courts have repeatedly treated them as conduct no spouse should be compelled to live under. Here the threat was not a stray allegation: a note existed on the record. Combined with the denial of conjugal life, the cumulative picture satisfied the settled test that mental cruelty must make it unreasonable to expect the parties to live together — a standard that looks to the totality of conduct rather than to isolated incidents.
What the decision signals for matrimonial trials
Three practice points emerge. First, cross-examination remains decisive in cruelty trials: the wife\'s admissions — no quarrel, no incapacity, willingness to cohabit only on her own locational terms — did more work than any affirmative evidence. Second, a condition of cohabitation that one spouse attaches unilaterally does not answer a cruelty case; it can reinforce it, because it frames the separation as chosen rather than forced. Third, appellate interference in matrimonial decrees requires perversity or misapplication of law; where the Family Court\'s findings rest on admissions and documents, a Division Bench will rarely re-weigh them. For parties on either side of a contested divorce, the case is a reminder that these matters are won on the record built at trial, not on appeal.
The judgment concerns the fault ground of cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act. It does not alter the position that a decree must rest on pleaded and proved conduct; nor does it make every refusal of intimacy actionable. Spouses facing such allegations should ensure their explanation — medical, circumstantial or arising from the other side\'s conduct — is pleaded and proved, since silence on justification is what proved fatal here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the key facts the court relied on?
The parties married in October 2018. The husband's case was that physical relations ceased within a fortnight, that the wife taunted him and threatened suicide, and a suicide note was exhibited. In cross-examination the wife admitted there was no major quarrel, no physical incapacity on either side, and that she was willing to live with her husband but not in Balotra, where he runs his business. The Family Court at Jaisalmer granted divorce for cruelty in February 2024.
Is refusal of physical relations always cruelty?
No. The principle drawn from Samar Ghosh v. Jaya Ghosh is that a unilateral refusal for a considerable period, without physical incapacity or valid reason, may amount to mental cruelty. Refusal explained by health, by the other spouse's own conduct, or by circumstances the refusing spouse can justify stands on a different footing. Each case turns on its evidence.
What happened to the restitution of conjugal rights petition?
A Section 9 petition had been tried alongside the divorce petition and dismissed. Once the Division Bench upheld the divorce decree, restitution became legally impossible — a marriage judicially dissolved cannot simultaneously be the subject of a decree compelling cohabitation — so the connected appeal failed as a consequence.
Which recent Supreme Court authority did the Bench apply?
Besides Samar Ghosh, the Bench relied on the Supreme Court's 2026 decision in Sonal Talpada v. Veerbhan Singh, 2026 INSC 620, which reiterated that denial of conjugal relations without valid reason over a sustained period is a species of mental cruelty for the purposes of Section 13(1)(ia).