New Delhi, Sept. 19 -- The Delhi High Court has ruled that persistent pressure on a spouse to sever ties with their family amounts to mental cruelty and can be a valid ground for divorce. A bench of justices Anil Khsetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar delivered the verdict on Wednesday, while hearing a woman's plea challenging a family court's January 2023 ruling, dissolving the marriage on the ground of cruelty. The couple married in March 2007, had a son and separated in 2011. The husband, in 2016, filed for divorce on grounds of cruelty, claiming that his wife was unwilling to live in a joint family, pressured him to partition the family property, and insisted on living separately from his mother and sister. He also alleged that she refused to share household responsibilities, behaved disrespectfully towards his family, caused disturbances at public events, and threatened to implicate his family in criminal cases. The trial court granted divorce in January 2023, but the woman challenged the decision in HC. In her petition, the woman alleged harassment by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, including humiliation during pregnancy, denial of household resources, and pressure to meet unreasonable expectations. She claimed the abuse caused her mental and physical harm, affected her minor son, and frequently necessitated police intervention....