GAYA PRASAD Vs. BHAGWATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant Gaya Prasad filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights in the court of the District Judge, Hoshangabad, which was dismissed by him. He has, therefore, filed this appeal.

(2.) IT is not disputed that the marriage between the parties took place in the year 1959. After the marriage, the respondent-wife Suit. Bhagwati lived with the appellant (petitioner) on two occasions; for the first time, she lived with him immediately after the marriage and then for the second time, after about six months of the marriage. The couple lived in the house of the petitioner at bankhedi in the Sohagpur tehsil of Hoshangabad district. The petitioner averred in the petition that in June 1962, his father went to Pachmarhi where the respondent was residing with her parents to fetch her but she was not sent on one pretext or another. He urged that later he himself went to fetch her in the month of July 1962 but she refused to go and thus withdrew herself from the society of the appellant. The petitioner further urged that the parents of the respondent were contemplating to have her remarried and desired to extract money from him and, therefore, were unwilling to send her. On these allegations, he filed this petition on 10-7-1962 claiming a decree for restitution of conjugal rights under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, (hereinafter called the Act ).

(3.) THE wife-respondent resisted the petition. She pleaded that the petitioner had no income worth mentioning of his own and had no immovable property. The petitioner was living in very adverse financial circumstances. She, therefore, applied for being appointed as gram sevika with the permission of the petitioner sometime in 1059-60 in order to carve out a decent living. For this, she was required to execute a bond in the sum of Rs. 1,000 to the Government for serving the Government at least for three years. She was appointed as gram sevika in april 19fil after execution of the said bond. She urged that she had requested the petitioner to live with her at the place where she was required to live in connection with her service but he refused and, on the other hand, tried to coerce her to give up the service. It was also urged by her that in the month of June or July 1962, the petitioner and his father threatened to disfigure her by cutting her nose and tried to take her away by force with the help of some ruffians. It was urged that, in the circumstances, she was required to seek police protection. It was also contended by her that she was willing to give the petitioner matrimonial company if the petitioner desisted from coercing her to give up the service.