PATNA: The Patna high court held that the divorce granted on the plea of adultery allegedly committed by the petitioners wife is illegal if the family court did not conduct trial by making the alleged adulterer as necessary party there in. A division bench of Justices P B Bajanthari and Arun Kumar Jha, while allowing the appeal of aggrieved wife, delivered the judgment on August 21, which was uploaded to the HC website on Tuesday. The court also held that the trial conducted by the family court was botched up, since no separate "issue" (points of dispute to be decided by civil courts) on alleged adultery was framed and neither any evidence to said effect was taken by the trial court nor the version of alleged adulterer was taken for he was not made a party in the said divorce petition. Respondent husband had filed the case in 2013 before the family court of Aurangabad, seeking divorce on the allegations of cruelty and adultery allegedly committed by his wife with her brother-in-law. The woman denied all the allegations and, instead, alleged cruelty and torture inflicted by her husband who was pressurising her to get her fathers immovable properties transferred to his name since she had no brother. She also alleged that she was deserted by her husband and the baby born out of her wedlock died for want of care by her in-laws. The woman also stated that she wanted to live with her husband. The family court framed a single issue on the point of divorce and decided it in 2021 by passing a decree of divorce while fixing alimony amount of Rs15 lakh to be paid to the wife. The aggrieved wife challenged the decree, pleading that the family court neither framed a separate issue for conducting trial on alleged adultery nor the alleged adulterer was heard on this point, making the entire trial legally fragile. The high court held that the order of divorce on ground of adultery, without hearing the alleged adulterer, makes the entire trial fatal and remanded the matter back to the family court to start the trial afresh after framing separate issues on allegations upon which divorce was sought.

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