N G DASTANE Vs. S DASTANE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a matrimonial dispute arising out of a petition filed by the appellant for annulment of his marriage with the respondent or alternatively for divorce or for judicial separation. The annulment was sought on the ground of fraud, divorce on the ground of unsoundness of mind and judicial separation on the ground of cruelty.

(2.) The spouses possess high academic qualifications and each one claims a measure of social respectability and cultural sophistry. The evidence shows some traces of these. But of this there need be no doubt : the voluminous record which they have collectively built up in the case contains a fair reflection of their rancour and acrimony.

(3.) The appellant, Dr. Narayan Ganesh Dastane, passed his M.Sc. in Agriculture from the Poona University. He was sent by the Government of India to Australia in the Colombo Plan Scheme. He obtained his Doctorate in Irrigation Research from an Australian University and returned to India in April, 1955. He worked for about 3 years as an Agricultural Research Officer and in October, 1958 he left Poona to take charge of a new post as an Assistant Professor of Agronomy in the Post Graduate School, Pusa Institute, Delhi. At present he is said to be working on a foreign assignment. His father was a solicitor-cum-lawyer practising in Poona.