JASVIR BHAGIRATHI Vs. CHAINIKA VEENA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a first appeal in a suit for restitution of conjugal rights, instituted by a petition under Sec. 32 of the Indian Divorce Act, by the appellant.

(2.) The parties were married on 10-6-1974. Both are Railway servants, the appellant being a clerk in the office of the Controller of Stores, and the respondent being a Staff Nurse in N. E. Railway, Central Hospital at Gorakhpur. The petitioner was living with his parents at the time of his marriage at a place called Dharampur, which is said to be adjacent to the City of Gorakhpur. After the marriage of the parties, the respondent went to live with the petitioner at the latters parental home. According to the evidence led by the petitioner, the stay was of 5 or 6 days only, and thereafter the two went for a honey-moon on a hill station for 2 or 3 days. It has been stated by the petitioners mother P. W. 1, that after coming back from the hills the respondent went straight to her own home in the Railway quarters at Gorakhpur, and did not stay at Dharampur residence of the petitioners parents. The petitioner was posted at Lucknow at that time and was transferred to Gorakhpur in Sept., 1974. On his transfer to Gorakhpur, the petitioner did not set up home himself but went and stayed with the respondent at her Railway quarter; and it is the petitioners case that he continued to live there up to 27-4-1975. The first and the only issue of the marriage, a son, was born on 21-4-1975 and the incident that occurred on 27-4-1975 whatever it was, has led to disruption of relations between the parties, so that they have not lived together at any time thereafter. The petitioner served a notice dated 30-10-1975 through a lawyer calling upon the respondent to come and live with him and bring the child and also the ornaments and clothes presented to her by the petitioner and his relations, as also the utensils belonging to the petitioner which were in her possession, within a fortnight of the receipt of the notice. The respondents reply bears no date but from the postal stamp it appears to have been served on 4-11-1976. It is Ext. 3 on the record. All the allegations made by the respondent in her written statement and the statement on oath before the Court have been stated in this reply. Unlike the petitioner, the respondent did not choose to send her reply through a lawyer, but addressed it herself directly to the petitioners lawyer.

(3.) Apart from the aforesaid primary facts about which there does not appear to he any dispute, the petitioner alleged that when he was transferred from Lucknow to Gorakhpur, he went to live with the respondent, on the insistence of the latters father, in the Railway Quarter No. 246C, Gorakhpur, although the petitioners parents reside at Dharampur adjacent to the city of Gorakhpur. He further - alleged that the respondent's father did not like the petitioners presence in her quarter, and on account of the conditions created by him, the petitioner had to leave the same and had to take up residence with his parents at Dharampur on 27-4-1975, and that ever since, he had been requesting the respondent to come to reside with him but she did not pay any heed. There is however, no allegation of any exchange of letters between the parties and the only documentary evidence on this point is the petitioners notice dated 30-10-1975 and its reply by the respondent. It is then said in the petition that none of the grounds for judicial separation or for decree of nullity of marriage, are available to the respondent against the petitioner and that her allegations to the contrary are false and baseless, and that she was bound to perform her marital obligations by living at Dharampur.