CHAND DHAWAN Vs. JAWAHARLAL DHAWAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The point which requires determination in these two appeals, arising from a common judgment and order dated February 15, 1991 of a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh, in Civil Revisions Nos. 2918 and 2919 of 1990 is, whether the payment of alimony is admissible without the relationship between the spouses being terminated.

(2.) The wife-appellant was married to the husband-respondent on September 19, 1972 at Amritsar, in the State of Punjab. Three children were born from the wedlock and are at present living with their father. Out of them two are males, their respective years of birth being 1973 and 1980 and the third is a female born in the year 1976. On August 28, 1985 a petition under section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') seeking divorce by mutual consent was received by the Court of the Additional District Judge, Amritsar purported to have been filed jointly by the two spouses. It was stated therein that the parties had been living separately for over a year due to incompatibility of temperament and their effort to settle their differences amongst themselves, or with the aid of friend and relatives, had been futile. On receipt the petition was kept pending, as was the requirement of section 13-B of the Act. According to the wife she was not a consenting party to the filing of such petition at all. Her version was that the husband had duped her in obtaining her signatures on blank papers on a false pretext and in turn had employed those papers in the said petition for divorce. On coming to know of the pendency of the petition, she immediately filed objections before the Court, obstructing the grant of petition. The respective pleas of the parties were put to issue and evidence was led. According to the wife some understanding later was reached between the parties on the basis of which she was to be put back in the matrimonial home and thus the petition was got dismissed on August 19, 1987 on the basis of the joint statement of the parties before the Additional District Judge, Amritsar which was to the following effect:

(3.) It appears that the dismissal of the petition under section 13-B led only to a temporary truce, and not peace as hoped. Rehabilitation in the matrimonial home evaded the wife. The husband, who in the meantime had established his business at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, barely three months after the dismissal of the petition under section 13-B, approached the District Court at Ghaziabad in a regular petition for divorce under section 13 of the Act levelling, amongst others, allegations of adultery against the wife. To meet the offensive the wife refuted the charge of adultery and prayed to the Ghaziabad Court grant of maintenance pendente lite, which the Court fixed at Rs. 1000 per month. It appears since the husband had obstacled payment of maintenance pendente lite, divorce proceedings stand stayed under orders of the High Court of Allahabad, until the order of grant of maintenance pendente lite was obeyed. The matter thus stands stagnated there.