OM PARKASH NARANG Vs. PRABHA NARANG

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal of the husband against a judgment of the learned Single Judge of this Court confirming in appeal the decision of the Additional District Judge, Delhi, dismissing his petition for a decree of judicial separation under Section 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act brings into bold relief the conflict between the matrimonial obligation of a husband and his duty to his widowed mother, as her only child.

(2.) The parties, who are educated and gainfully employed-the husband as an Engineer and the wife as a Teacher-were married in July 1967, and a son was born of the wedlock in September 1968. The husband had lost his father during infancy and was maintained and educated by the mother, who is also an educated lady and is gainfully employed as a Principal of a Government School. Since the marriage between the parties and until the unfortunate discord that led to a precipitate situation, they all lived together in a house which is and has throughout been under the tenancy of the mother. The matrimonial harmony has unfortunately been a short lived one and it appears that the relations between the parties took an unhappy turn soon after the marriage even while the wife was pregnant, either because of the dissatisfaction with regard to the quantum of dowry, a reason which has proved fatal to many a marriages in this country, or because of inability of the wife and mother-in-law to make proper adjustment or perhaps because of the inability of the husband to maintain a proper or healthy balance between his matrimonial obligations to a wife and his loyalty and affection for a widowed mother, who had not only brought him up, but had maintained and educated him or probably because of differences that may have arisen between the wife and the mother-in-law, who were both working women, as to the allocation of domestic chores. Which out of these factors and to what exent may have contributed to the unfortunate situation that took the parties to Court has been subject matter of controversy. By the petition, out of which the present appeal arose, the husband sought judicial separation on the ground of desertion and cruelty on the part of the wife. The petition was dismissed by the trial Court and the allegations of desertion and cruelty were repelled. In Appeal before a learned single Judge of this Court, the allegations of cruelty were not pressed and judicial separation was sought on the grounds of desertion which was repelled and the appeal was dismissed. The husband appeals and seeks divorce on the grounds of desertion in view of the amendment of the Act during the pendency of the proceedings as a result of which desertion has been made a ground for divorce rendering decree for judicial separation unnecessary.

(3.) Section 10 of the Act entitles the parties to the marriage to a decree for judicial separation, before its amendment, and to a decree of divorce, after the recent amendment, on the ground that either party to the marriage-