P V SABU Vs. MARIAKUTTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition filed by the husband praying for a decree declaring that the marriage between the petitioner and the respondent is a nullity under Section 18 of the Indian Divorce Act. The allegations as per the amended Original Petition are as follows :The petitioner and the respondent married on 3rd September, 1992. The marriage was an arranged one. After the marriage the petitioner and the respondent lived in the house of the petitioner for two weeks. Thereafter the respondent went to Bombay to rejoin duty as a Nurse. After four months of the marriage the petitioner got an employment in Saudi Arabia. On 25-3-1993 the petitioner received a telephone call informing that the respondent delivered a child at Bombay hospital where she was working. It was a normal delivery and the child was fully grown up. Then the petitioner made enquiries and he came to know that the respondent was pregnant at the time of the marriage. On further enquiries it was revealed that the respondent went to Bombay earlier in search of employment along with one Koshy and she was residing in the house of the above Koshy. She developed an illegal intimacy with him and she became pregnant through him. The respondent was having about three months pregnancy at the time of the marriage. If the petitioner had any knowledge about it, he would not have married her. Thus the petitioner's consent for the marriage was obtained by fraud concealing the fact of pregnancy. There is also no collusion between the petitioner and the respondent.

(2.) The respondent has filed a counter-affidavit. According to the counter-affidavit the petitioner and the respondent knew each other before the marriage and they were in love. The petitioner came to Bombay on two occasions, in the months of May and July, 1992. On those occasions they stayed together in a hotel at Bombay and the respondent "submitted everything to him as instigated by him". As a result of the above relationship which they had, the respondent became pregnant. The delivery was not a normal one; it was a Caesarean. After delivery the respondent came to her house. The baptism ceremony took place with the blessings and co-operation of the parents of the petitioner. After some time the petitioner's attitude towards the respondent began to change gradually. He was asking questions as to how the delivery was premature. He also informed the respondent that his parents and relatives were having suspicion about the premature delivery. The respondent never felt that the two meetings in the hotel at Bombay "had created any danger in her". The petitioner also requested the respondent to write letters to him in which the respondent must describe how she was raped by taxi drivers and that she had some illicit intimacy with her relative. At that time she did not know the evil motive of the petitioner that these letters would be used against her in these proceedings. The respondent also executed a document styling as the divorce document at the threat of the petitioner, to save her job which she was having in Saudi Arabia. The respondent is also categoric in denying that she was pregnant by three months at the time of their marriage.

(3.) A detailed reply affidavit has been filed by the petitioner. The story of staying at a hotel in Bombay has been denied in the reply affidavit. The version of the respondent that the letters were written as requested by the petitioner was also denied.