The Bombay High Court has said defaming husband and calling him a womaniser and alcoholic without substantiating the allegations amount to cruelty, and upheld a family court order dissolving the marriage of a Pune-based couple.

A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh in its order passed on October 12 dismissed an appeal filed by a 50-year-old woman, challenging a November 2005 decree passed by a family court in Pune dissolving her marriage to a retired Army official.