The appellant (husband) had pressed two grounds for divorce: mental cruelty by saying the wife has been a free-willed person who would go out of her own to the market and other places and did not observe ’Parda’.

The Allahabad High Court while allowing an appeal said that a ‘free-willed’ wife’s acts of travelling alone or interacting with members of civil society without engaging in any illegal or immoral relationships cannot be considered an act of cruelty against her husband.