KHUSWANT KAUR Vs. BALWANT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is against the judgment dated 14th July, 1981 of the Additional District Judge, Delhi, who, on a petition being filed by the respondent, granted him a decree for annulment of his marriage with the appellant.

(2.) The parties were married in Delhi on 21st Feb., 1979 according to Sikh rites. They lived together in Delhi and no child has been born out of the wedlock.

(3.) The petition, from which the present appeal arises, was filed by the respondent-husband on 3rd April, 1979 under Sec. 12(1)(b) read with Sec. 5(ii) (c) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (thereinafter referred to as the said Act) . The case of the respondent was that the appellant and her parents had committed a fraud on him and had not disclosed to him the fact that the appellant was suffering from insanity and epilepsy before the marriage. It was alleged that the person who arranged the marriage also did not know of this illness. It was after a week of the marriage that the appellant suffered a severe and recurring attacks of epilepsy and became unconscious for some time. According to the respondent, at the time when the appellant got such an attack, she first became unconscious and thereafter when she regained consciousness she started behaving in an abnormal way. According to the respondent, after regaining consciousness the appellant started tearing off her clothes and thereafter she became violent and started crying and biting the respondent with her teeth. It was also alleged that after the first attack the appellant suffered recurring attacks on every subsequent day. Some specific instances were also stated in the petition. One such incident is alleged to have taken place, when about a month after the marriage, the parties were going to Bangla Sahib Gurdwara. At that time the appellant again had a attack. Thereafter the appellant is stated to have been taken to G.B. Pant Hospital for treatment by her husband and it was then that the respondent came to know that the appellant had been having recurring attacks since the childhood. It also transpired that she had been under treatment in the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital as well as G.B. Pant Hospital prior to marriage. The husband also came to know that the elder brother of the appellant also suffered from this incurable disease. It was on these facts that the husband claimed a decree for nullity.