PREMANBAI Vs. CHANNOOLAL PUNAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent against the judgment and decree of the Hon. Shri Justice T. C. Shrivastava, passed in Second Appeal No. 329 of 1957.

(2.) THE only question that arises for consideration in this appeal is whether the plaintiff-appellant could validly consent to a divorce by her husband in a caste panchayat held for the purpose when there was a caste custom in the community to which the parties belonged, according to which a divorce can take place by mutual consent of the spouses.

(3.) THE learned single Judge has found that the parties belonged to the community of Patwas and that, according to the caste custom of the community, a divorce was possible by the mutual consent of the spouses. It was further pointed out that although the defendant-respondent had pleaded a very wide custom permitting a divorce by mutual consent of the spouses, the defendant did not allege or prove that in the case of minors or in the case of persons who had not reached the age of discretion according to the Hindu law, no divorce was permissible even according to the custom of the caste. Consequently the learned single Judge held that the appellant-plaintiff, who was aged between 14 or 15 years at the time of the panchayat where the divorce had taken place, had validly consented to her divorce from the defendant-respondent. He also found that at the time of the divorce the plaintiff-appellant had reached sufficient maturity of understanding to comprehend the nature of tha act which she was doing.