If mutual consent is not available — because your spouse refuses to agree to a divorce, or because the terms cannot be resolved — you may file a contested divorce petition on one or more statutory grounds. These grounds are exhaustively defined by law, and courts do not grant divorce on grounds outside this list, regardless of how severe the marital breakdown feels. Understanding which ground fits your situation is the critical first step in building a case that will succeed.

Under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, the recognised grounds for a contested divorce in Kanpur are: cruelty — mental or physical acts that make it unsafe or unreasonable to continue cohabiting; desertion — the respondent having abandoned the petitioner for a continuous period of not less than two years without reasonable cause and without consent; conversion — the respondent having converted to another religion; unsoundness of mind or a continuous mental disorder of such a kind and degree that cohabitation cannot be reasonably expected; leprosy in a virulent and incurable form; venereal disease in a communicable form; renunciation of the world by entering a religious order; presumption of death after seven years of absence; and adultery (now pleaded as cruelty in most practical filings, given evidentiary challenges). Wives have two additional grounds: rape, sodomy, or bestiality committed by the husband after the solemnisation of marriage, and a decree for maintenance having been in the wife's favour without resumption of cohabitation for at least one year.

In the Kanpur Family Court's experience, the two grounds that appear most frequently in contested petitions are cruelty and desertion — and they are also the most heavily litigated, because both involve questions of fact and degree that require careful documentation and witness evidence. A ground is not established merely by pleading it; you must prove it through your own testimony, corroborating witnesses, and documentary evidence such as medical records, police complaints, messages, and photographs. The quality and preparation of this evidence is what separates successful petitions from dismissed ones. The family court advocates and retired judges available through Aapka Legal Advice's Kanpur panel can assess which ground best fits your specific facts, how to build the evidence for it, and what to expect at trial.

One important practical note: the ground you choose also determines the strategy of the other side. If you plead cruelty, expect your spouse's lawyer to contest the evidence of each act. If you plead desertion, expect arguments about whether the departure was justified. Choosing the ground that is best supported by your actual evidence — rather than the ground that sounds strongest in the abstract — is the foundation of a case that succeeds.