OMPRAKASH DHAWAN Vs. SANTOSH KUMARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a husband's appeal from an order made by the Principal Civil Judge, Bangalore, refusing a decree for divorce under Section 13(1)(viii) of the Hindu Marriage Act. It was in the year 1939 that the two spouses were married in Gujaranwala which is now in Pakistan. They resided together for sometime in Rawalpindi which is also now in Pakistan. Where there was a partition of the country, the two spouses began to live in India permanently. The husband is in Bangalore, and the wife is in Delhi.

(2.) On July 23, 1959, the husband made an application to the Principal District Judge, Bangalore, in Miscellaneous No. 200/1959 for a decree for judicial separation on the ground of desertion on the part of the wife. That decree was made in his favour on September 28, 1959. On March 9, 1962, the husband made an application under Section 13(1)(viii) of the Hindu Marriage Act for a decree of divorce on the ground that the decree for judicial separation had not been followed by any subsequent resumption of co-habitation for a space of two years or upwards after the decree was made. Both on the occasion when the husband sought a decree for judicial separation and also when he sought a decree of divorce, the wife did not appear. The application for a decree of divorce was made by the husband to the Court of the Principal Civil Judge, Bangalore, since when that application was made, he had been invested with jurisdiction to decide applications presented under the Act.

(3.) The Principal Civil Judge dismissed the husband's application on the ground that he had no jurisdiction to hear and decide it. He depended in support of his conclusion on Section 19 of the Act which provides that every application under the Act shall be presented to the District Court within the local limits of whose ordinary original Civil Jurisdiction the marriage was solemnised or the husband and wife reside or last resided together. The words 'District Court' occurring in this Section as defined by Section 3(b) of the Act includes other Civil Courts specified by the State Government by notification in the Official Gazette as having jurisdiction in respect of the matters deals with by the Act and since the Principal Civil Judge's Court was one of the Courts so specified the husband's application was made to that Court. But the Civil Judge, taking the view that since the marriage was not solemnised within his jurisdiction and since the spouses neither reside nor last resided together within his jurisdiction at any relevant point of time, he had no jurisdiction to hear the application, dismissed it. It is from this order that the husband appeals.