CHANDRASHEKHAR KESHAV UMBRANIKAR Vs. ROHINI CHANDRASHEKHAR UMBRANIKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant filed a petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, in the family Court, Pune, seeking dissolution of his marriage with the respondent on the ground of cruelty and desertion. As the petition was rejected and the appellant was directed to pay a sum of rs. 600/- per month for the maintenance of the respondent and a further sum of Rs. 200/- per month for the maintenance of their minor daughter, he has filed the instant appeal.

(2.) IT is not in dispute that the appellant married the respondent according to Hindu rites on december 5, 1987 and thereafter they started living in Fune where a daughter was born to them on November 13, 1988. It is also not in dispute that on March 3, 1989 the respondent left her matrimonial home and since then she is living with her parents. According to the appellant, the respondent is very rude, arrogant and quarrelsome. Besides, she did not do any household work. His next averment in his petition is that whenever he asked her to mend her ways she used to bang her head against the wall and give out that she would commit suicide. After detailing some of the instances of her rude and crude behaviour in the petition, the appellant lastly alleged therein that in the night of March 2, 1989 there was a petty quarrel between the respondent and his mother over washing of utensils and on the following day she left his house and deserted him since then.

(3.) IN contesting the petition the respondent denied all the accusations made against her except that she left his home on March 3, 1989 following her quarrel with her mother-in-law over washing of utensils on the previous night. However, her version relating to the incident of that night is that when her mother-in-law asked her to wash the utensils she told her that as she was feeling some pain in her stomach and as her daughter was crying she would wash the utensils on the following morning. This explanation of her's, according to the respondent, did not find favour with her mother-in-law and she rebuked her. It is under such circumstances that she left the house.