SNEH LATA Vs. KEWAL KISHAN SETH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal u/s 28 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is directed against the judgment and decree of divorce dated 7.1.83 of the Add. District Judge, Delhi. The parties wree married on 8,9.73. A son was born out of this wedlock on 18.1.75. On 3.10.78 the respondent-husband filed a petition u/s 13 of the Act for dissolution of the marriage by a decree of divorce on the ground of cruelty and desertion. The trial court negatived the ground of cruelty but passed a decree of divorce on the ground that the wife had deserted the husband for a continuous period of two years. The wife has filed this appeal. The finding regarding alleged cruelty is not challenged by the respondent-husband.

(2.) The husband in his divorce petition has alleged that on 31.7.75 he reached home after attending office and found his wife was not there. He made enquiries from his mother. She told him that the wife had left telling that the husband was waitiug for her at Vivek Cinema and that they both had to go together to some place, that the act of the wife leaving the house on 31.7.75 was without the consent and against his wish, that there was no cause muchless reasonable and sufficient cause for the wife to have left his house on 31.7.75; that he went to the house of his father-in-law and asked her to come back along with the child but she told him that she had left him with the intention of never coming back. He has further alleged that an attempt was made through relations and friends for the wife to come and live with him but she refused. He has also alleged that even if she agrees to come back now it would not be possible for the parties to live together peacefully and he would be subjected to cruelty.

(3.) The wife in her w/s denied the allegations of cruelty. Regarding desertion she has aeged that respondent expected his wife to be more beautiful than him, that he has always been representing that she should take divorce from him, that she requested him not to utter such words as she was a Hindu wife and did not believe in re-marriage. She has alleged that two or three days before 31.7.75 the husband had threatened that if she did not leave the house, he would not come to the house and might stay somewhere else, that on one day he came very late in the night and on 31.7.75 he had not come at all. In these circumstances, he had alleged that her mother- in-law told her that since the husband had become obstinate and had made it a prestige issue, it would be better for her to go her parants house for a day or two and she could come when he cools down. She has further alleged that she acted on her advice and went to her parents house on 31.7.75. She has denied that she left the house of her husband against his wishes. She has also alleged that after two days she went to the house of her husband but her mother-in-law told her that the circumstances were not favourable till then and she should stay back at her parents house for some more time, that several attempts were made thereafter but he refused to keep her, that she appreached him at his office all alone and aho in the company of her colleagues to persuade him to keep her but his attitude had been that he did not like her.