SIDDAGANGIAH Vs. LAKSHAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is a husband whose application against his wife under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for a decree for restitution of conjugal rights, was dismissed by the Civil Judge, (After stating the facts in paras 2 and 3, the judgment proceeded :

(2.) The only two witnesses who gave evidence in the proceeding are the two spouses. (After discussing the evidence in Paras, 4, 5, 6 and 7, their Lordships observed).

(3.) However that may be, the fact remains that after the spouses lived together happily for five or six years, their marriage went on the rocks. We should ask ourselves why the matrimonial career of the spouses was wrecked in that way. An important piece of evidence which provides us with the key to the solution is the evidence of the husband and that given by the wife that after the wife went to her parent's house there was a complaint against the husband to the police charging him with cruelty. The husband admitted--and that is the effect of what he stated--that he had been warned by the police against such indulgence, and he denied that he had been warned by the police against such indulgence, and he denied that he had thereafter again indulged in such cruelty. The fact that a complaint of cruelty was presented to the police at the relevant point of time and also the fact, as admitted by the husband he was warned by the police and the fact that even according to the husband there was a panchayat in the house of his father-in-law at which the endeavour made by every one is, in our opinion, sufficient corroborative evidence of general character of that given by the wife on cruelty. (After discussing the evidence and confirming the lower court's findings in paras 9 to 18 the judgment proceeded:-)