India, Nov. 2 -- New Delhi

The Delhi High Court has ruled that a spouse's continuous behaviour that creates reasonable apprehensions of infidelity in the other's mind, coupled with the failure to dispel such doubts, amounts to mental cruelty and constitutes sufficient grounds for divorce.

A bench of justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, in its October 29 order that was released on Friday, observed that when a spouse invests emotional intimacy, secrecy, and sustained communication in another person outside the marriage while maintaining a facade of propriety, it causes profound mental anguish, humiliation, and emotional abandonment.

Infidelity, whether physical or emotional, corrodes the very foundation of marriage, ...