A false criminal case in marriage is not merely failed litigation — it amounts to cruelty. Affirming the position, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that levelling false criminal allegations by a spouse constitutes mental cruelty. The ruling came as a division bench refused to interfere with the divorce decree and dismissed a wife’s appeal.Upholding the dissolution of marriage under the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, the division bench ruled that the husband’s acquittal in a criminal case lodged by the wife was sufficient to establish that false allegations had been made, attracting the settled principle that such conduct amounted to cruelty. The decision was delivered by a bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Ramesh Kumari.The court recorded: “The acquittal of the husband in a criminal case lodged by the wife against him shows that the wife had indulged in levelling false allegations against her husband, which as per ratio of the apex court judgments would constitute mental cruelty, as has been correctly held by the trial court.”Acquittal in criminal case tilts the scaleThe bench noted that the wife had initiated criminal proceedings under provisions of the IPC relating to subjecting a married woman to cruelty and another offence. But the husband was acquitted. This acquittal became the pivot for the trial court’s finding of mental cruelty, which the high court found no reason to disturb.Rejecting the wife’s contention that the husband had failed to lead sufficient corroborative evidence, the court effectively held that the outcome of the criminal trial itself furnished adequate basis to infer cruelty.Finding the trial court’s reasoning aligned with settled law, the bench concluded: “We do not find any ground to interfere with the impugned judgment. The appeal is hereby dismissed.” The judgment is significant as it signals that courts are increasingly willing to treat demonstrably false accusations not merely as failed litigation, but as actionable matrimonial cruelty warranting divorce.