The Allahabad High Court recently noted that when a spouse forbids their partner from having sexual relations with them for a protracted period of time without a good reason, it constitutes mental cruelty and the marriage should be dissolved. The appellant, Ravindra Pratap Yadav, claimed that his wife Asha Devi “had no respect for a marital bond, denied to discharge the obligation of marital liability,” and that their marriage had “completely broken down,” the court noted. In 2005, a Varanasi family court dismissed Mr. Yadav’s divorce petition. Citing Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, Mr. Yadav appealed the decision. The High Court dismissed Mr. Yadav’s case, alleging that the lower court took a “hyper-technical approach.” Because a mutually agreed-upon divorce had already occurred in the community Panchayat, Ravindra Pratap Yadav had filed for divorce. Additionally, he accused them of mental cruelty, “refusing to cohabit and discharge the obligation of marital life,” and spending a long time apart. After getting married in May 1979, according to Mr. Yadav, his wife’s behavior changed and she refused to live with him. She eventually started residing at her parents’ home. He tried to persuade his wife to return after six months of marriage, but she refused. A panchayat was held in the village in July 1994, and the parties came to a mutually agreeable divorce agreement. The petitioner stated that he gave his wife alimony in the amount of $22,000. She did not appear in court, however, when her husband requested a divorce judgment based on mental cruelty, desertion, and a divorce agreement. “Undoubtedly, not allowing a spouse for a long time, to have sexual intercourse by his or her partner, without sufficient reason, itself amounts to mental cruelty to such spouse…Since there is no acceptable view in which a spouse can be compelled to resume life with the consort, nothing is given by trying to keep the parties tied for ever to a marriage than that has ceased to in fact,” a Bench of Justices Suneet Kumar and Rajendra Kumar-IV said. Referring to a 2006 Supreme Court judgment on the aspect of mental cruelty, the bench found faults with the order of the family court and set it aside.