SEPHAL DEBNATH Vs. ANITA BISWAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner-Appellant and the non Petitioner Respondent are husband and wife, on account of having performed marriage, on 10.12.2001, in accordance with the Hindu religious rites and customs and consequent thereto, the said marriage was registered under Section 8 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, on 14.12.2001. After completion of the marriage, both Appellant and the Respondent had been living together, as husband and wife. Both Petitioner-Appellant and the Respondent are the teachers by profession, and after their marriage they were residing in a rented house belonging to one Smt. Shipra Pal at Melarmath, Agartala, who was in profession, Nurse and was working in G.B Hospital.

(2.) According to the Petitioner-Appellant the Respondent-wife is quarrel some in nature and she used to talk in filthy languages without any cogent ground and not only that, she also refused to share the bed with the Petitioner-Appellant since the very begining of their marriage and did not allow the Petitioner-Appellant to cohabit with her. In a subsequent stage, the Petitioner-Appellant had come to know that the Respondent wife was elder in age than to him and she had some suspicion regarding him. He also pleaded in his petition that the Respondent-wife had deserted him all on a sudden, without giving any information to any one and on getting the said news, the Petitioner-Appellant tried his level best to get back the Respondent wife in his residence but she refused to come back and ultimately, the Petitioner-Appellant being aggrieved by the behavior of the Respondent-wife has filed a petition under Section 13(1), (1-a) (1-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 before the learned Judge, Family Court, Agartala, West Tripura against the Respondent-wife, which was registered as T.S(Divorce)FC.140/2004.

(3.) The Respondent-wife on receipt of the process of the Court has appeared and also filed her written statement denying the allegation made by the Petitioner-Appellant in his petition. In the written statement, the Respondent-wife has contended that the whole story, as narrated in the petition with the allegation of cruelty and desertion, is false and concocted one and that has so made only to get an order of divorce. In her written statement, though she admitted the marriage but also made some allegation against the Petitioner-Appellant stating interalia that he was a man of loose character and he had developed an illicit relation with one Smt. Laxmi Das, who is the wife of a Group-D employee of his school. Respondent-wife has stated that apart from protesting the said illicit relation, she also tried to minimize the dispute between them by way of pursuing the Petitioner-Appellant not to develop such illicit relation with the wife of another person, which could not succeed. Her further contention in the written statement is that her husband i.e. the Appellant-Petitioner had left the rented house on 7th July, 2002, without leaving any message for her and as the Petitioner Appellant did not return to the rented house almost for period of 15-20days, then she went to her parental house and started staying there.