SUNEER SHARMA Vs. MADHURLATA SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant/Defendant-husband Dr. Suneer Sharma has filed this appeal against the judgment and decree dated 8-5-1998 passed by the learned single Judge of this Court in First Appeal No. 220/97 confirming the judgment and decree passed by the trial Court in case No. 576-A/91.

(2.) Facts not disputed are that the appellant and the respondent were married on 16-11-1984 at Kherapati Colony, Gwalior. At the time of marriage, appellant was possessing M.B.B.S. degree and the respondent-wife was possessing post graduate degree in medical science. At that time, appellant was serving as a medical officer in Co-operative Sugar Factory at Panipat. In the same year the respondent wife got an appointment as medical officer in N.F.L. Panipat where she was also allotted an official residence in the campus of the hospital. The couple lived peacefully for a period of about 2 years in the ancestral residence of the appellant at Panipat. However, when after a lapse of 2 years, the respondent did not conceive, she was subjected to number of medical tests and investigations and as per reports there were little chances of her conceiving. The respondent is living separate in her official residence since 3-9-1989. Father and Kusum Sharma, unmarried sister of the appellant were residing at Delhi, where the unmarried sister was serving as a teacher.

(3.) Respondent/wife filed suit under Section 13(1) (i)(ia)(ib) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for dissolution of marriage on 12-9-1991. She alleged that after two years of their married life, when chances of her conceiving a child were found remote, her husband, mother-in-law Shakuntala Devi and unmarried sister began to ill-treat her on this count and were repeatedly taunting her that she was a Banih (a barren woman incapable of conceiving a baby) and the mother-in-law and the sister-in-law were often threatening that they would go for a second marriage of the appellant/defendant. The mother-in-law went to the extent that she one day asked the respondent-plaintiff to consume a pill named 'Quick Phos' a poisonous drug in order to end her life and proposed that she would keep the pill in the bathroom where the respondent could conveniently consume it. The idea behind the proposal was to bring the life of the respondent to an end so that appellant could go for a second marriage without any problem. By this incident, the respondent was gravely hurt mentally. She, therefore, informed her mother and her mother came to her house at Panipat. The appellant, his mother and sister allegedly misbehaved with the mother of the respondent and on being objected by the respondent, she was subjected to beating in the presence of her mother and both were turned out forcibly on 3-9-1989. Thereafter, respondent never lived with the appellant. The respondent on her part went many a times to the house of the appellant and pleaded him and her mother-in-law not go for a second marriage of the appellant, but they did not respond and ultimately the appellant is reported to have married another lady named Pinki Bhaskar, somewhere near 30-4-1990. Pinki Bhaskar was renamed as Seema Sharma after her marriage with the appellant. She gave birth to first child in Feb. 1991, and thereafter two more issues were born from the wedlock and all the three issues are presently living with appellant and Seema Sharma. It was alleged by the plaintiff-respondent that because of the cruelty both mental and physical meted out to her by the appellant and his mother and sister and also because the appellant had contracted a second marriage and lastly because she had been deserted for a continuous period of more than two years, it was not possible for her to continue her matrimonial relationship with the appellant and wanted her marriage to be dissolved by a decree of divorce.