JAISHREE MOHAN OTAVNEKAR Vs. MOHAN GOVIND OTAVNEKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal arises out of the wife's petition under the Hindu Marriage Act for divorce on the ground of cruelty, physical as well as mental. The husband does not seem to be interested in contesting this Appeal. He has made it a point to remain absent consistently in spite of repeated notices from this Court.

(2.) The petition for divorce was filed by the appellant/wife (hereinafter, the petitioner for divorce on the ground of cruelty allegedly practised by her husband (the respondent) against her. In her petition, she has given various instances of physical cruelty as well as mental cruelty. In defence to the petition, the respondent filed his written statement and in Para 2 of the written statement he made a thoroughly unwarranted allegation of adultery on the part of the petitioner with one Shankar Balaji Dubekar. This is what he has stated in said Para 2 :-

(3.) The respondent also denied the various allegations of cruelty made by the petitioner against him and on these pleadings issues were framed by the learned Judge and the parties went to trial. The petitioner examined only herself. The respondent examined himself and also examined two witnesses; Otavnekar and Chonkar. On the basis of the evidence, arguments were advanced before the learned Judge and the learned Judge was satisfied that so far as the allegations as regards the various acts of cruelty till the date of the petition were concerned, they were not proved by the petitioner. However, an additional argument was advanced before him, viz. the allegations contained in Para 2 of the written statement filed by the respondent, set out above, Themselves amounted to grave mental cruelty on the part of the respondent against the petitioner/wife. Reliance in that behalf was placed on the judgement of the learned single Judge (Vaidya. J.) of this Court reported in AIR 1976 Bom 212, Smt. Sumanbai v. Anandrao Onkar. The learned Judge, however, relied upon another judgement of another learned single Judge (R.A. Jahagirdar, J.) reported in 1980 Mah LJ 391, Madanlal Sharma v. Smt. Santosh Sharma as also upon the judgement of the Delhi High Court reported in AIR 1982 Del 107, Smt. Pushpa Rani v. Krishan Lal and held that even though grave allegations of adultery were made by the respondent/husband against the petitioner/wife in the written statement which could be regarded as one of the forms of mental cruelty, still there was nothing in the evidence of the petitioner to show that my agony of mental character was suffered by her on account of those allegations. The learned Judge seems to have taken the view that those allegations were taken by the petitioner wife in her strides, or that she had not taken much serious note of them and that, hence, no serious note of the same need be taken by the Court as well. Taking this view of the matter, the learned Judge dismissed the appellant's petition without order as to costs.