ISSUE:
Whether the defendant has treated the petitioner with cruelty and the effect of such cruelty?
Whether such cruelty and desertion can amount to valid ground for dissolution of marriage?
Whether the defendant is entitled to any relief? If so, its effect?
RULE:
Section 13 of the Hindu marriage Act deals with cruelty under which, Cruelty consists of acts which are dangerous to life, limb or health. Cruelty for the purpose of the Act means where one spouse has so treated the other and manifested such feelings towards her or him as to have inflicted bodily injury, or to have caused reasonable apprehension of bodily injury, suffering or to have injured health. Cruelty may be physical or mental.
"Desertion", for the purpose of seeking divorce under the Act, means the intentional permanent forsaking and abandonment of one spouse by the other without that other's consent and without reasonable cause.