SHYAM SUNDER GAUTAM Vs. BIMLA KUMARI GAUTAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal has been filed by the husband against the appellate order of the learned single Judge of this Court, dated 15th January, 1976 by which his Lordship has dismissed the appeal and upheld the order of the trial court dated 2nd January, 1975, finally maintaining the dismissal of the appellant's petition for a decree of judicial separation on the ground of desertion.

(2.) The material facts of the case are that the appellant husband and the respondent wife were married on 29th January, 1959 and they have a son born on 30th March, 1961, who is still alive. The appellant had been studying at Gwalior from 1958 to 1963 during which period he was married. In 1966 he got a job in Delhi as Inspector of Weights and Measurements, and now he is working as the Sales-tax Officer. According to the appellant in 1966 he began to live in the house of his father at 1741, Sohan Ganj, Subzi Mandi, Delhi, (which we shall refer to as 'paternal home'), but on 1st February, 1968 the respondent wife, who had, as alleged, been treating the appellant cruelly left for Mathura, her father's house, and deserted him and since then the parties have been living apart. On 9th June, 1971 the appellant filed the petition and has claimed a decree for judicial separation on the ground of desertion.

(3.) At this stage it may be mentioned that the petition as originally filed claimed judicial separation both on the ground of cruelty and desertion, but at an early stage of the litigation, the appellant abandoned the ground of cruelty and proceeded with the case only on the ground of desertion and so we are concerned only with this ground.