AKHILESH SWAROOP SHARMA Vs. RASHMI AKHILESH SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CHALLENGE in this appeal is to the judgment and decree dated 30-3-2006 passed by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Durg (CG) in Civil suit No. 519-A/2005, whereby the application filed by the respondent/wife under Section 13 (1) (1a) and (1b) of the Hindu Marriage act, 1955 (for short, the Act, 1955) for grant of dissolution of marriage between the respondent/wife and the appellant/husband, was allowed.

(2.) THE facts of the case, in brief, as unfolded before the Family Court are that even before marriage appellant/defendant and the respondent/plaintiff were residing in the same locality at Bhilai and they knew each other. The respondent/wife herein was a student of a college at Nagpur. The appellant/defendant Akhilesh Swaroop Sharma came into contact with the respondent/plaintiff and later they fell in love with each other. However, in the year 1999 respondent/plaintiff was admitted in a college at nagpur for studying the Computer Management. In the month of November, 1999 the appellant/defendant went to Nagpur to meet respondent/wife and returned to Bhilai. In the month of February 2002 he again went to Nagpur to meet her and expressed his desire to marry her. Thereafter, the marriage between the appellant and the respondent was solemnized according to Hindu Rites on 16-2-2000 in Arya Samaj Mandir, Nagpur. After marriage, i. e. on 16-2-2000 the appellant/defendant removed vermilion from her forehead and also removed the ornaments worn by her and returned to Bhilai. On 17-2-2000 the respondent/plaintiff came to bhilai to meet her husband, but the husband refused to meet her. Thereafter, she came back to Nagpur. She did not disclose about her marriage to her parents. In the year 2002 respondent/plaintiff Rashmi was residing in the Girls Hostel in Nagpur. Although, the appellant/defendant Akhilesh swaroop Sharma neither met nor contacted her over telephone, the respondent/plaintiff informed her husband over telephone that she was residing in the Girls Hostel in nagpur. Thereafter, appellant/defendant akhilesh went to Nagpur and met her. He told his wife that he was residing in a hotel and pressurized her to come to the hotel along with him. She came alone with her husband to hotel where the friends of her husband were already there. When she refused to enter into the room along with her husband, he threatened her and pressurized her to enter into the room but she refused and came back to the hostel. Thus, the appellant/defendant was behaving with his wife cruelly. Thereafter, they were not maintaining marital status. On 23-9-2000 the father of the respondent/plaintiff came to Nagpur and took his daughter to her mother-in-law's house in Agra. Thereafter, appellant/defendant lodged first information report in Police Station Kotwall, Sector 6. Bhilai Nagar against the parents of the respondent/plaintiff and falsely implicated them. Thereafter, appellant-defendant threatened his wife, brother-in-law, and her parents to kill them. The respondent/plaintiff on 15-11-2000 lodged first information report in the Police Station Kotwali, bhilainagar, against her husband about the incident. After their marriage i. e. 16-2-2000 they never lived together and were living separately since then. The appellant/defendant threatened his wife over telephone and sent some scandalous letters to his wife through his brother and his sister-in-law. Being aggrieved by such act of cruelty and desertion by the husband, the respondent/plaintiff had filed a civil suit for dissolution of marriage before the Family Court, Durg. The Family Court, Durg, vide judgment and decree dated 30-3-2006 allowed the civil suit filed by the respondent/plaintiff and granted the decree of divorce between the parties. There against, the appellant/defendant has preferred this appeal.

(3.) LEARNED counsel appearing for the appellant submits that the impugned judgment and decree passed by family Court is contrary to law and material available on record. The family Court failed to appreciate that the respondent failed to establish the ingredients of cruelty and also failed to appreciate that the respondent herself avoided to reside with appellant's family. Learned counsel further submits that the appellant/defendant has not been allowed to cross-examine the witnesses of the respondent and opportunity was not afforded to him to adduce the evidence of his witnesses. The family Court further erred gravely in holding that the appellant and respondent were residing separately for five years. The family Court has wrongly appreciated the FIR lodged by the appellant because the fact is that the appellant lodged the FIR with an object to resume conjugal life. Learned counsel further submits that the Family Court wrongly held that the behaviour of the appellant with the respondent was cruel as there is no such evidence to prove that the appellant behaved cruelly with his wife. The next submission of learned counsel for the appellant is that the family court reached to wrong conclusion by mis-appreciating the material evidence available on record. The findings recorded by the family Court are perverse and bad in eye of law. The family Court committed grave error in allowing the application of the respondent. Therefore, the impugned judgment and decree dated 30-3-2006 be set aside.