Not every meeting with an ex amounts to adultery. Drawing a distinction between suspicion, past relationships and legally provable infidelity, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that a solitary meeting with another man cannot by itself establish adultery. Even a relationship prior to marriage, the court said, does not constitute adultery after marriage.“The conduct of respondent-wife in meeting the person (with whom she was allegedly in a relationship much prior to marriage) alone on January 11, 2023, being a single incident, cannot be said to mean that she was living in adultery with him. Nor can her previous relationship with him before marriage tantamount to an offence of adultery for the respondent-husband,” the Bench ruled.The ruling came in a matrimonial dispute arising out of a marriage solemnised on November 16, 2021. No child was born from the wedlock. The husband, serving in the Indian Navy, accused his wife of maintaining a relationship with another man even after marriage.According to the husband, the wife was “quarrelsome and short-tempered”, frequently returned home late, refused to share a bed with him and remained occupied on her mobile phone for long hours speaking to strangers. He claimed he later found that she had been in a relationship with the other person even before the marriage.The husband further alleged that on January 11, 2023, he found his wife at the residence of the other man and called her father and brother to the spot, where she was allegedly found “in compromising position” before being taken back to her parental home.The wife, however, denied the allegations. She, in turn, accused the husband and his family of dowry harassment. She further alleged that her father-in-law had “bad eyes” on her and that despite informing her husband about his conduct, he sided with his father instead.But the Family Court found serious inconsistencies in her version. The Bench quoted the trial court as saying: “It is highly improbable to believe that the wife would commute with the same person i.e. her father-in-law, who is having bad eyes on her. Meaning thereby, her allegations that her father-in-law, who is admittedly old aged person, had bad eyes on her, are false. Making such like reckless, irresponsible and false allegations on the character of father of petitioner and defaming him in the pleadings before the Court in present petition, is apparently a serious cruelty against the petitioner…”The Bench took note of the fact that the Family Court also disbelieved her dowry allegations after she admitted during cross-examination that no Bullet motorcycle — allegedly cited by her as dowry — had in fact been given. “Meaning thereby the claim made by the respondent in her reply is found false and an apparent attempt to defame the petitioner by levelling false allegations of dowry,” the Family Court observed.The trial court went on to hold that repeated allegations against the husband and his family without supporting evidence amounted to cruelty. Referring to the order, the high court ruled that the trial Court rightly dissolved the marriage between the parties, not on the ground of adultery, but cruelty on part of respondent-wife.“In view of the same, the impugned judgment and decree passed by the Family Court does not call for any interference and the appeal filed by the appellant-wife stands dismissed being devoid of any merits,” the Bench concluded.