Compelling a spouse to abandon their faith and convert to another religion without consent is an act of violence and cruelty, the Madras High Court ruled while upholding the dissolution of an inter-faith marriage.
A bench comprising Justices N Seshasayee (retired) and L Victoria Gowri stated that such coercion violates the fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. The case involved a Hindu woman who alleged that her husband pressured her to convert to Islam, renamed her against her will, and forced her to abandon her lifelong beliefs.
The court emphasized that marriage is built on mutual respect, and any attempt to strip a spouse of their personal beliefs and identity constitutes severe mental cruelty. The judgment reinforced that the Special Marriage Act does not mandate religious conversion and that forcing a spouse to adopt another faith is not just a violation of personal liberty but an outright denial of religious freedom under Article 25 of the Constitution.
The ruling also pointed to evidence of desertion, as the husband had moved into his sister’s home after a few years of marriage, leaving his wife to endure the situation alone. Given these findings, the court found sufficient grounds to uphold the trial court’s decision to dissolve the marriage, affirming that both forced conversion and the attempt to proselytize a spouse amount to cruelty.