India, Aug. 1 -- Refusing to grant a divorce to a 39-year-old man who alleged that his wife had an extra-marital affair and deserted him, the Bombay High Court said that the man had failed to produce evidence of 'cruelty' against him. It said that claims of cruelty alone are not sufficient for granting divorce. "Cruelty has to be proved by the party who alleges it by producing evidence," a division bench of justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande said in a recent order.

In this case, the wife, 37, had failed to come before the court and the man claimed that she had deserted him and started living with another man. The judges said that the family court that had refused to grant him divorce was right in holding that "when such alleg...