ABOOBACKER HAJI Vs. MAMU KOYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The matrimonial misfortune, of a Muslim couple, Mammu Koya and Mariyambi, has forced its way into court from both ends, each spouse instituting a lawsuit, the husband soliciting the wife's society in an action for restitution of conjugal rights and the wife demanding a divorce snapping the ties between the two as intolerable to continue. The tragic feature of this marital estrangement is that a child born to the couple has to share the mishap by being denied the healthy environs of a happy parental home.

(2.) The parties are relatively young although the profile of their conjugal life bears scars and wounds which form the subject matter of the two suits. According to the husband, (who is the plaintiff in O. S. No. 213 of 1962, which has given rise to S. A. No. 281 of 1970) his wife (the 2nd defendant in the suit, her father being the 1st defendant) was living with him in comparative quiet and a son was born to them. The lady left for her father's house with the child some two years before the suit and did not return. The husband was not allowed access to his father inlaw's house and thus, without reason, the wife has withdrawn her consortium thanks to the wrongful obstruction of her father. The plaintiff's further version is that he had been sending sums of money for the maintenance of his wife, but they were being refused at the instance of the 1st defendant. So, he seeks the remedy of restitution of conjugal rights.

(3.) The wife who has filed a separate suit for divorce (O. S. No. 292 of 1963 out of which S. A. No. 656 of 1971 arises) has put forward defences which also form the foundation of her action for divorce. She sets up a case of neglect and cruelty and vaguely urges an irreparable breakdown of the matrimony. Issues were framed in both the suits in rather general terms, and while the Trial Court granted a decree for the husband and dismissed the claim for divorce made by the wife, the appellate court concurred in the conclusions of the first court. The lady has come up in second appeal against the decrees in both the suits.