RAYMOND THORNTON Vs. MARGUERITE ELAINE THORNTON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a husband's petition for divorce under the Indian and Colonial Divorce Jurisdiction Act, 1926, the ground of divorce being desertion by the wife without cause for three years which is made a ground for divorce under the Act of 1937. The facts appearing from the evidence of the husband, which I accept, and the letters from his wife, which he puts in, admit of no doubt.

(2.) THE parties were married in 1922, and the husband and wife came to India in July, 1926, the husband being employed in the Indian Radio and Cable Communications Co. , Ltd. , which is an Indian company, and the parties lived together in Bombay until March, 1929, when the wife went to England, taking with her the only child of the marriage, a son who had been born in October, 1926. THE husband says that in the normal course of events he will remain in India in his present employment until he is fifty-five years of age, which will be sixteen years hence. But he is domiciled in England, and intends to return to England when his employment in India ceases. In 1930 the husband went to England on leave and lived with his wife in the normal manner. He asked his wife in 1930 to return with him to India, but she refused. In 1934 the husband again went to England on leave and he again lived with the respondent as his wife, and pressed her to return with him to India. She refused verbally and she also wrote him letters of October 26, 1934, and August 12, 1935, in which she said that she would not return to the East. She alleges that her health is injured by living in the tropics, but there is no medical evidence of that, and the husband says that she was quite well in India, though, like other people, she felt the heat.