No divorce for man who falsely claimed his wife was HIV positive: Bombay HC
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court has refused to grant divorce to a 44-year-old man from Pune who falsely claimed his wife was HIV positive due to which he suffered mental agony.
A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh in its order of November 16 dismissed the appeal filed by the man in 2011, challenging an order passed by a family court in Pune the same year refusing his petition for divorce.
The man has not produced any evidence that his wife had tested positive for HIV, which caused him mental agony, the HC said, adding that his prayer for grant of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage is liable to be rejected outright.
The couple got married in March 2003 and the man claimed his wife was of whimsical nature, stubborn, short-tempered and did not behave properly with him or his family members.
She had also suffered from tuberculosis and later with herpes, the man further claimed.
As per his plea, a test later conducted on his wife in 2005 revealed she was HIV positive. The man subsequently sought divorce.
The wife, however, refuted the claims and said her HIV test had come out negative, but still her husband spread rumours about this among her family members, thus causing mental agony to her.
The HC bench in its order said the man failed to produce the medical report of his wife showing she was HIV positive.
"There is not an iota of evidence produced by the petitioner husband that the respondent wife had tested positive for HIV, which caused him mental agony or that the wife has treated him with cruelty," the high court said.
"In spite of the medical report which shows the test result as HIV DNA "not detected", the petitioner has refused to co-habit with the respondent and defamed the respondent in the society by informing relatives and friends that the respondent has tested positive," it said.
Hence, the husband's prayer for grant of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage is liable to be rejected outright, the bench said in its order.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
