India, Sept. 23 -- The Delhi High Court has held that a spouse's deliberate attempt to alienate a minor child from the other parent amounts to psychological cruelty and can be a valid ground for divorce.

A bench of justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, in its September 19 order, released later, observed that using a child as a weapon in matrimonial disputes not only harms the other parent but also deeply affects the child's emotional well-being, and thus undermines the very foundation of family harmony.

The court delivered the verdict while dealing with the woman's plea challenging a family court's September 2021 ruling, dissolving the marriage on grounds of cruelty.

The couple got married in March 1990, had a son, ...