AINA DEVI Vs. BACHAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a wife's first appeal from a judgment dated 8th May, 1976 of the Court of the District Judge, Tehri Garhwal, dismissing her petition for declaring her marriage with the first respondent a nullity under Section 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act on the ground that the first respondent was already married and had a wife living in the person of the second respondent, when he married the petitioner-appellant.

(2.) The appellant's case as set out in her petition which is dated 13th May, 1974, was that the first respondent had married the second respondent some 10 years ago and a daughter Kamla was born to them prior to Samvat 2025, that is 1968-69, and they were living as husband and wife since long before, it was then pleaded that the petitioner's father having died when she was about 7 or 8 years old, that is, some 15-16 years before the filing of the petition; and the pe-tioner's mother having become a cripple some 10 years ago and being unable to look after her cultivation, she needed a Ghar Jawai, and with that intention the first respondent was taken by the petitioner's mother as a Ghar Jawai, that is, as the petitioner's husband who had to live at the petitioner's place and look after the cultivation and maintain the petitioner. The first respondent was alleged to have been taken as Ghar Jawai by the petitioner's mother in Samvat 2025 that is in the year 1968-69, but the first respondent lived with the petitioner for only about 10 months and that too intermittently as a Ghar Jawai and left her thereafter for good. On these facts, the petitioner's marriage with the first respondent was alleged to be void as the first respondent already had a wife living in the person of the second respondent with whom the first respondent had continued to live after leaving the petitioner, and had even begotten two more children thereafter on the second respondent. By an amendment of the petition it was further claimed that even before the first respondent was kept as a Ghar Jawai by the petitioner's mother, three more Ghar Jawais had been successively kept by the petitioner's mother as the petitioner's husbands and had one alter the other left her. They were, however, all living, and on this ground also it was alleged that the petitioner's marriage with the first respondent was void, for contravening the condition against bigamy.

(3.) In defence, the two respondents pleaded that Smt. Purna Devi was not the wife of the first respondent, but was the wife of his brother Yudhvir Singh, and the children born of the second respondent were begotten on her by Yudhvir Singh and not by the first respondent. The allegation of the petitioner's earlier marriages with the three named persons in succession, was denied. In the alternative it was pleaded that even if it was assumed for the sake of argument that the second respondent was the wife of the first respondent, although that was denied as incorrect and false, the petitioner was not entitled to any relief for having condoned the first respondent's past conduct by voluntarily co-habiting with him. It was also pleaded that the petition was liable to be dismissed on account of the inordinate delay in filing it, more than five years after the event.