JAYANTI CHOWDHURY Vs. SURENDRA NATH DEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner wife filed a suit against the respondent-husband for declaration that the marriage between the petitioner and the respondent was null and void and, in the alternative, for a decree of nullity of marriage under Sec. 25(iii) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954.

(2.) There is no dispute that the petitioner and the respondent were married on 24.3.1974 under the Special Marriage Act. At that time, as slated in the petition, the petitioner. I used to live with her parents at 138B, Amherst Street. The petitioner vehemently presses that she was born at 1.2.1960. The respondent was constable. The allegations of the petitioner are that the respondent induced her to go through the marriage ceremony under the Special Marriage Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) by means of fraud. The frauds alleged are that the respondent gave out that he was a responsible officer in the Home Department and graduate too. The marriage is also described as void as according to the petitioner, she was below the age prescribed by the Act. The said marriage was not disclosed to the parents of the petitioner and only when one Pumendu Mukherjee, a relation, disclosed the. same on 27.12.1976, the parents of the petitioner came to know of the said marriage.

(3.) These are the grounds made out in the petition. In the written statement filed by die respondent husband, it is strongly repudiated that the petitioner was minor at the time of marriage, or that she was born on 1.2.1960. The allegations of fraud etc. are strongly denied. The respondent submits that he never concealed the fact that he was a School Final passed boy and worked as a constable. According to the respondent, there could not be any question of consummation of the marriage, as the petitioner was not allowed by her parents to go out of her residence. In short, the respondent seriously contests both the allegations of minority and fraud.