MOOLCHAND Vs. LAXMIBAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the husband's appeal against the trial Court's Judgment and Decree whereby the wife's claim for divorce on the ground under Sec. 13(l)(i) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, had been allowed, with some costs.

(2.) Appellant Moolchand and respondent Laxmibai were admittedly married in April, 1978 according to Hindu rites and customs, although, after the marriage, no Gouna ceremony had been performed. The case of the respondent-wife for claiming divorce had principally rested on the premises that the husband (Appellant) had married another woman Mst. Munnibai on or about 1982 during the subsistence of the earlier marriage between the parties and that the said woman Munnibai was not only living with Moolchand but had also given birth to some child, through co-habitation with Moolchand. The husband had denied this allegation. Due to non- compliance of the trial Court's order under Sec. 24 of Hindu Marriage Act, directing the husband to pay the maintenance pendente lite and expenditure of proceedings, his right of defence was terminated. Consequently, the trial Court, in the light of the evidence, adduced on the wife's side, held that the husband aas guilty of adultery with the other woman Munnibai, and accordingly, the wife's claim for divorce was decreed. Hence, now, the husband's present appeal.

(3.) The learned counsel for the appellant-husband, has urged, in the first place, that Munnibai, having not been joined in the divorce-petition and having not been noticed, as enjoined by Rule 5 of the High Court Rules, framed under Sections 14 and 21 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the divorce petition was liable to be dismissed outright. It is, next, urged that the documents Exts. P-1 to P-3 had wrongly been admitted by the trial Court, in the absence of their proper proof, and therefore, the trial Court was wrong in holding that Munnibai had been kept by the appellant-Moolchand as his wife and that one child was born out of there adulterous act. The learned counsel for the respondent-wife has countered these arguments by contending that these arguments advanced by the appellant's learned counsel, are not liable for consideration, since, the husband's right of defence had been terminated by the trial Court.