SIMON STOCK Vs. MARAGATHAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a case referred for our confirmation of the decree nisi under S. 17 of Act iv of 1869, by the learned District Judge of West Tanjore. The essential facts are as follows.

(2.) THE petitioner in the reference married the first respondent on 12-6-1946, under Christian rites of marriage. The petitioner was employed in the Railway, and in 1954, he was a Station Master at Narasingampettai. It appears to be indisputable that the first respondent was involved in a case of murder as an accused, and that these proceedings took some time. According to the petitioner, the second respondent, the cousin of the first respondent, was assisting her with regard to the conduct of her defence, with the consequence that an illicit intimacy sprang up between them. There was a number of subsequent events set forth in the petition, which do not now directly concern us. But, to put it briefly, the case of the petitioner was that the first respondent was unfaithful to him, and that she has been committing acts of adultery with the second respondent even in 1954, and later in 1961. As the aspect of a possible condonation of a matrimonial offence, in this case, adultery, by the husband, might be of some relevance, in the present context, we set forth the following passage verbatim from the evidence of the petitioner (P. W. 1):

(3.) IT is a fact that neither the wife nor the co-respondent (second respondent)contested these proceedings, at any stage. It is also established that the wife was personally served with notice, and she did not come forward either to deny the alleged matrimonial offence of adultery, or to plead that subsequent thereto she had resumed matrimonial living with her husband (petitioner), and that there has been any condonation of her conduct by her husband. P. W. 1 is corroborated by a relative (P. W. 2) and by one Dhandapani (P. W. 3) employed as a pointsman in alakkudi railway station. P. W. 3 gives specific evidence that, while the petitioner was away at Bombay in 1961, respondent 2 visited the house of respondent 1, and that P. W. 3 actually saw the two together in a compromising situation.