P S RAMARAO Vs. P R KRISHNAMANI AMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS civil miscellaneous second appeal is filed by the husband against the order of the District Judge, Madurai dismissing the petition for restitution of conjugal rights against his wife. The trial Court allowed the petition for restitution of conjugal rights. But on appeal the lower appellate Court dismissed the petition for restitution of conjugal rights.

(2.) THE main ground on which the petition for restitution of conjugal rights is based, is that, in spite of his earnest attempts to bring we wife to his house, the wife, without reasonable cause, refrained from joining him. The defense is that the wife was never properly treated, that she was forced to file a maintenance suit against the husband which resulted in a compromise decree, that, even thereafter, the husband did not take any effort to act according to the compromise decree, and that, as a result of it, she could not join the husband. It has also been stated that the petition for restitution of conjugal rights was filed after an inordinate delay.

(3.) THE facts, briefly, stated, are: The appellant and the respondent lived as husband and wife for a period of five months after their marriage and thereafter, misunderstanding arose between them. The wife filed a maintenance suit which resulted in a compromise decree. The decree provided that the husband should take on rent a separate house for the residence of the wife and himself and lead the proper marital life. It was also provided in the decree that, in case the husband rendered joint living impossible by cruelty or circumstances for joint marital life disappeared, he should pay maintenance of Rs. 20 per mensem to the wife from the date of failure of joint life. In pursuance of this compromise decree, attempts were made by the husband as well as the wife of secure a house, so that the husband and wife could live together. The attempts failed and the wife took out execution of the maintenance decree in 1961, 1964 and in 1967.