ASIT KUMAR DAS Vs. KALPANA DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This was an appeal against a decree of a dismissal of the suit for dissolution of marriage on the ground of desertion and cruelty. The appellant/plaintiff brought this matrimonial action before the learned trial Judge on the facts, stated in short, hereunder.

(2.) The appellant and respondent were married in accordance with Hindu rites and ceremonies on 9th March. 1989 and they have only one issue out of this marriage. The respondent wife has treated the plaintiff/appellant with mental and physical cruelty. The particulars of such alleged acts of cruelty are summarized hereunder.

(3.) The brothers of the wife are wealthy and prosperous and they have their business of building materials. As such, she being proud of the wealth of her brothers and their affluence ridiculed the appellant/petitioner and further undermined him. The husband is mentally tortured with the insulting utterances of the wife that he is incapable of maintaining the wife properly as he is a man of small means. The wife wants to lead and. in fact, leads extravagant life and in order to maintain her life of high standard she squeezes out money from the appellant/plaintiff. It is absolutely impossible for the plaintiff/appellant, being a police constable, to meet her monetary demand. She abuses the appellant with vulgar words. She has developed acquaintance with and has access to the local leaders of a political party. She has forcibly driven away the plaintiff/appellant and his brothers and sisters and their old mother from the first floor of his own ancestral house. She has occupied the entire first floor and has founded a party office for running political activities. With the help of the workers of the ruling political party she has been able to establish her unholy clout and influence so much so that the appellant/plaintiff was assaulted physically and compelled to leave the house, His mother was assaulted at her instigation by the workers of the ruling political parly and as the mother could not withstand the assault she died of shock. The petitioner has been compelled to live elsewhere because of the physical assault inflicted by the workers of the political party at the instigation and instance of the respondent wife. Thus, the desertion is continuing from January, 1991.