P VASANTHA Vs. K S KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The wife who suffered by a decree for divorce on the ground of cruelty in OP No.1025 of 2001 on the file of the Principal Family Court at Chennai is the appellant.

(2.) The Original petition was filed by the husband seeking divorce on the ground that the respondent wife has treated him with cruelty and that she had converted into Christianity. The marriage was solemnized at 19.01995 at Pettai in Tirunelveli District. After the marriage, the spouses set up a residence at No.6, Thanikachalam Nagar, Kolathur, Chennai - 600 099.

(3.) According to the husband, the marital life became miserable within a few months of marriage. He would claim that the activities of the respondent wife had caused unbearable mental torture and cruelty. It is claimed that the appellant never allowed the respondent husband to do his business peacefully. He claimed that the mother of the respondent who came and stayed with them for more than a month promising to advice the respondent, however took her daughter along with all the household articles and left the matrimonial home at 110.1997. It is also stated that she wrote in a bond paper stating that she is not interested in continuing in the matrimonial bond signed the same and handed it to the husband. Despite, several attempts made by the husband for rejoining through relatives and friends, the appellant did not show any interest in joining with him. While so, in 1999, the business carried on by the respondent husband ran into loss and he almost became bankrupt. At that time, the appellant wife came back to Chennai but she refused to stay with his parents forcing him to set up a separate residence at Kolathur for the appellant wife and she stayed in the house rented by him. She would not allow the husband to stay with her, she would frequently torture him for money and the husband also obliged by paying whenever she demanded money. Due to the ill treatment suffered, the husband suffered heart attack and was hospitalized, even during the hospitalization period the appellant wife did not bother to visit him in the hospital. Despite his poor financial status he had borrowed money for interest in order to manage a decent living. It is claimed that the appellant wife fabricated several stories claiming that he is having an illicit intimacy with one Sumathi who was working in the business concern run by the husband. He would also contend that the appellant wife lodged a police complaint in Kolathur Police Station against him and his family members. Despite of assurance given by the husband in the Police Station that they would lead a normal life, the appellant wife did not co-operate and continued in her own way. Claiming that the actions of the appellant wife resulted in mental and physical cruelty, the husband sought for divorce. It is the further case of the husband that the appellant removed her Thali and when enquired about it she claimed that she had converted to Christianity. This conversion was also made a ground for seeking divorce.