DR. DWARAKA BAI Vs. PROFESSOR NAINAN MATHEWS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a long -drawn -out petition, having a tangled history which must be set out briefly for the purpose of understanding the facts and issues involved.

(2.) THE petition is by Dr. Dwaraka Bai, M.B.B.S.. an Indian Christian doctor of Guntur, now aged 43, for divorce against her husband Professor Nainan Mathews M.A., B.L., a retired Indian Christian Professor, now aged 60, and till recently 'a regular student of the United Theological College, Bangalore. The petitioner took her M.B.B.S. degree in Madras in 1935 and began practising at Guntur where her father also is a doctor. When she became nearly 36 years old, i.e., in the beginning of 1946, she felt an urgent desire to get married. She, therefore, wanted to find out a suitable man to marry. One Mrs. Joseph, a Syrian Christian doctor of Bapatla, in Guntur district, told her about the respondent, Nainan Mathews, and told her also that he was by age, education, culture, family and character eminently fitted to be her husband. So, a long paper correspondence began between Mrs. Joseph and the respondent and then between the petitioner and the respondent. The petitioner told the respondent in Ex. P. 27 dated 23 -2 -46 that she had acquired house, lands, and cash worth some Rs. 80,000 and had been an Honorary Magistrate. She finally became violent in her passion for the respondent (see Exs. P. 33, P. 34 etc.) in her letters and was willing to overlook the disparity in age. The respondent was far more cool and calculating. He told her bluntly in his letters that he had undertaken various responsibilities towards his step -brothers which were not legally or morally binding on him but had been taken up by him on Good Samaritan principles. So, he wanted her at first to give him a dowry, (really bride -groom's price) of Rs. 15,000/ - and finally demanded an irreducible minimum of Rs. 6000/ -. The petitioner who had made good money by her practice and was getting more than a thousand rupees a month by 1946, and had also acquired house and lands and car and had much cash lent out for interest, was quite willing to give a good sum as bride -groom's price. The respondent told her in his letters that both by culture, character and wealth she appeared to him to be a desirable mate but that there was one difficulty he had to overcome, namely, his family which was an ancient Syrian Christian family and claimed to be the descendants of Nambudri Brahmins converted by St. Thomas in the first century A. D. Naturally the family wanted him to marry only a Syrian Christian, and there was also one Syrian Christian Inspectress of Schools in sight besides an M.B.B.S. lady of doubtful character but of undoubted wealth. The respondent, in his letter to the petitioner, said that he did not want to marry the lady of doubtful character and of undoubted wealth. The petitioner wrote to the respondent (see Ex. P. 34) that if he married the Syrian Christian Inspectress lady, the first marriage present he would receive would be her corpse, meaning that she would commit suicide like a Juliet of the 20th Century. The respondent assured her that there was no need to take any such desperate step as he had resolved to marry her and he was not the man to go back on his resolve. (3) Eventually negotiations progressed to the usual climax, and the respondent arrived with his four brothers at Bapatla on 20 -4 -1946. The petitioner ran up from Guntur to Bapatla in her car in her eagerness to see her would -be husband and pour out her love to him. But, when she met him in the night (the time is given by her as 9.30 p.m. and by the respondent as 12 -30 a.m. on the night of the 20th), in her own words, she was shocked to find that he looked much older than the figure in the photo that was sent to her by him. In their anxiety for the marriage, the petitioner and the respondent had sent to each other photos taken several years before. That is perhaps an illustration of the maxim that in love and war truth is the first casualty. Anyway, the petitioner was thoroughly disappointed at the physical appearance of the respondent whom she considered to be an ugly old man, very much dilapidated and not coming up to his own specification. But she had already made 'all preparations for the marriage and had told one and all, and the bride -groom too had arrived and she had to go on with the marriage, as remarked by the learned Judges in O. S. A. No. 73 of 1947. The marriage was celebrated at a cost of Rs. 4000 and with great pomp, at Guntur, on 22 -4 -1946, advancing it three days earlier than the original date fixed. But, as usually happens, the pomp did not contain the substance. The voice of laughter hid a heart of sadness so far as Dwarakabai was concerned.

(3.) IS the petition barred by 'res judicata?