S JAGANNADHA PRASAD Vs. S LALITHA KUMARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two Civil Miscellaneous arise out of connected C.M.A. No. 825 of 1981 is filed against the order dt. 19-8-1981 in O.P. No. 16 of 1979 dismissing the petition filed by the husband for divorce. C.M.A. No. 324 of 1983 is filed against the order in I.A. No. 203 of 1981 dt. 12-4-83 in O.P. No. 16 of 1979 granting maintenance to the wife. In both the appeals the husband is the appellant.

(2.) We will first take up C.M.A. No. 825 of 1981. The parties were married on 1-6- 1975 at Srikakulam. The respondent is the appellant's step-sisters daughter and is a native of Bhilaspur. The parties lived happily for a year. The case of the appellant is that the respondent was taken by her father for Dasara, one year after the marriage and never sent her back. The respondent's father was always insisting that some property should be kept in the name of the respondent and he was more interested in money than his daughter's happy marital life. In spite of repeated requests, the respondent never returned from her parents house. He seeks for dissolution of the marriage on the ground of desertion. The respondent filed a counter stating that the appellant developed illicit intimacy with one Parvathi and he had a son through her. Later he brought Parvathi and the son and they started living together in the same house. Unable to bear this, the respondent went to her parents house. She filed a petition for maintenance under S.125, Cr.P.C., and the same was pending. The respondent stated that she left the house not on her own, but due to the intolerable behaviour of the husband.

(3.) The appellant examined three witnesses including himself and so also the respondent. No documents are marked for the appellant. For the respondent Exs.B-1 to B-13 are marked. On a consideration of the evidence on record, the trial Court held that there was reasonable cause for the respondent to live away from the husband and to withdraw her society, that she was not guilty of desertion, that she left the marital home as the husband kept a concubine by name Parvathi, through whom he got a child and they were living in the same house. The trial Court held that the plea of desertion is not substantiated and on the other hand, it was the appellant that was responsible for breakdown of the marriage. In reaching this conclusion, the trial Court relied upon the letters written by the appellant himself to the wife and her father in which he made several admissions that he was living with Parvathi and begot a child. The Court also relied upon the decree and judgments in several proceedings between Parvathi and her husband and ultimately the said Parvathi divorced her husband. We have gone through the evidence once again. The reasons given by the trial Judge for the conclusions reached by him are unassailable. In fact, no serious attempt is made to challenge the findings. We find no merit at all in the appeal. It is accordingly dismissed. C.M.A. No. 324 of 1983 : -