PEDDIGARI ANNAPURNAMMA Vs. PEDDIGARI APPA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals arise out of O. P. Nos. 79 and 105 of 1957 respectively and raise a common question, namely, whether the respondent was suffering from a virulent and incurable form of leprosy for a period of not less than three years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition (O. P. No. 79 of 1957).

(2.) The parties are the same in both the appeals. The wife preferred O. P. No. 70 of 1957 for dissolution of marriage by a decree of divorce under Section 13(1) (iv) of the Hindu Marriage Act alleging that her husband had been suffering from a virulent and incurable form of leprosy from the year 1953. It was alleged in the petition that their marriage took place in their childhood, that after she attained puberty the marriage had been consummated, that she led conjugal life with her husband for about six months when she discovered that he had symptoms of loathsome skin disease and that later on it was found to be leprosy which was incurable and was of a virulent type.

(3.) The petition was resisted by the respondent, the husband, on the grounds inter alia, that the leprosy from which he was suffering was a mild one that he took treatment in the leprosy hospital at Salur and that he was cured of the symptoms of the disease. It was his further case that it was only in 1956 that the symptoms of leprosy appeared. He also filed O. P. No. 105 of 1957 for restitution of conjugal rights with the same allegations as those contained in his counter in O. P. No. 79 of 1957.