R Vs. S

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal by the original petitioner husband is directed against the dismissal of his petition for a decree of divorce under section 13 (1) (ib) of the Hindu Marriage Act filed against his wife Smt. S. By the judgment in Civil Appeal No. 150 of 1990 the appeal of the wife was allowed and the petition for divorce dismissed thus reversing the judgment and decree granted to the present appellant by the civil Judge, Senior Division, Thane in Marriage Petition No. 102 of 1989.

(2.) THE petitioner Mr. R. is a resident of Mulund. The respondent Smt. S. was a resident of Ulhasnagar, Dist. Thane and until the year 1977 the petitioner husband was employed in the clerical staff of the Income-tax Office at Bombay. So also the wife Smt. S. and her brother S. G. who has been examined as a witness at the trial. However, it is not in dispute that the marriage between the petitioner and the respondent was not a result of their acquaintance or intimacy but was an arranged marriage as such. It would appear and it is not particularly in dispute also that it was mainly because of the approval of Shri R. by S. G. as a husband for his sister Smt. S. that this marriage came to be performed in April, 1986.

(3.) BY 1977 the petitioner husband had however left his job and launched himself into business as a builder. In the Satguru Sadan Housing Society at Mulund the petitioner owned flat No. 11. The flat No. 11 stands in the name of the petitioner. The adjoining flat No. 10 stands in the name of one N. A. who is, as claimed by the petitioner, his foster father and one Mrs. N. B. the foster mother. There is also no dispute that these two flats have eventually come to be connected by opening the door in the common wall between the two flats so that flat Nos. 10 and 11 become a one single establishment. Alongwith N. A. and Mrs. N. B. , their son and daughter were also living. The petitioner claimed that he had been, almost since his child-hood brought up by N. A. as his foster parents and was therefore greatly attached to them. An additional fact which has emerged from the evidence on record and which may therefore, be stated here only as a proper apprisal of the totality of the facts and circumstances, is that the petitioner lost his father some time in the year 1965. He has his sisters and brothers also. The widowed mother lives with one of the brothers who lives abroad.