DAYABATI PRADHAN Vs. HRUSHIKESH PRADHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has been filed against the judgment and decree dated 25-9-1986 and 4-10-1986 respectively passed by the learned Subordinate Judge, bargarh in Title Suit No. 96 of 1984.

(2.) THE plaintiff is the appellant. The plaintiff is the legally married wife of the defendant. The marriage between the parties was solemnized on 28-2-1973 in accordance with the Hindu rites and ceremonies. After marriage, both the parties remained as husband and wife at village Antapali till bhadrava, 1981. Thereafter, the family members of the defendant-husband disliked the plaintiff and she was subjected to various ill-treatments and cruelty. In the month of pushera of the year 1981, the defendant with active connivance of his mother and younger brothers picked up quarrel with the plaintiff and assaulted her and drove her out of the house and left her at the bus stand of her father's village. Since then, the plaintiff is residing in her parents' house and apprehends danger to her life from the matrimonial house. In spite of repeated information given by the parents of the plaintiff to take back her, the defendant paid no heed to it. In September, 1983, the defendant came to the parents house of the plaintiff and on the insistence of the parents of the plaintiff, both the parties went to Burla Medical College for treatment, got themselves examined by dr. M. D. Rout, but the defendant did not follow the doctor's advice and left the plaintiff at her parents' house. After that, the defendant sent two letters on 16-11-1983 and 16-12-1983 to the father of the plaintiff indicating his intention to divorce the plaintiff. Alleging that the defendant deserted the plaintiff without any reasonable excuse and therefore, he is liable to provide separate residence and maintenance to her, the plaintiff filed the suit claiming maintenance at the rate of Rs. 400/- per month and arrear maintenance at the rate of Rs. 12,000/- from the defendant. She further claimed that the defendant has the capacity to pay the maintenance as he belongs to a well-to-do cultivator family having 65 acres of irrigated land at villages Antapali and Tora. The income of the defendant approximately would be more than Rs. 25,000/- per annum.

(3.) THE defendant in his written-statement traversed the plaint allegations and pleaded that he has never deserted the plaintiff and still very much wishes that the plaintiff should resume her marital life with him and she should return to his company without delay. It had further been pleaded that the plaintiff finally went to her mother's place in the month of Jestha, 1982 accompanied by her mother against the wish of the defendant and his family members. The defendant had gone to the parents' house of the plaintiff to bring her back but she did not return. Apart from that, the plaintiff comes from an ordinary cultivator family and is habituated to work in the field and gets rs. 300/- per month and hence the defendant has stated that in case maintenance, if any, is to be allowed, it should be at the rate of Rs. 10/- per month. The defendant also made a counter-claim praying for a decree for restitution of conjugal rights against the plaintiff directing her to join his company. The plaintiff resisted the counterclaim filed by the defendant wherein she denied the averments of the defendant and stated, inter alia, that the defendant is not entitled to a decree for restitution of conjugal rights, because he had deserted her for more than two years and as such the counter-claim was barred by limitation. In that premises, the plaintiff prayed for dismissal of the counter-claim.