PRAMOD Vs. VASUNDHARA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant in this Appeal was the petitioner in the trial Court, who had filed M.J. Petition No. 414 of 1982 against his wife, the present respondent, for a decree for divorce. The grounds mentioned for divorce were two-fold :-

(2.) The Respondent/Wife filed her written statement and denied the various allegations of cruelty levelled against her. She also denied desertion on her part and contended, implicitly, if not in so many words, that the petitioner was himself the sole cause of desertion which was the constructive desertion practised by himself against the respondent by driving her out of the matrimonial home. Her defence amounts to this that it was the petitioner who was to be blamed for her departure from the matrimonial house, because it was he who made her leave the house. I may mention here that what is stated above is the substance of the Respondent's averments in Para 10 of her Written Statement. She has not made those statements in so many words, but I have no doubt that that is what she implies.

(3.) On these rival contentions, Issues were framed by the learned Judge and the parties went to trial. Evidence was led only by the petitioner. The respondent did not as much as step into the witness-box. It can be safely stated that evidence of no kind whatsoever was led by her even to prove that her departure from the matrimonial home was the result of anything done by the husband against herself or that it was the result of the fact that her living in the house was made impossible by the husband. In spite of this position, the learned Judge recorded the findings that :-