SHINDER PAL KAUR Vs. MANJIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appeal is by the wife seeking for a divorce against the husband on the ground that the husband was guilty of cruelty and desertion. The incident of cruelty attributed to the husband was that on a particular day after the marriage he had brought 3-4 persons alongwith him and made indecent suggestion that she must have relations with them so that he would obtain his supply of some drug (smack). It was also stated by her on oath that this incident was immediately narrated to her husband's brother who was a Police Constable. The parents were informed and they had immediately come to rescue her and took her out of the house and since then she has been living away with the child that she had through the respondent at the residence of her parents. She had been living in her parents' house for 3 years from the date of presentation of the petition and her husband did not even take any interest to change his way or take her back with the child.

(2.) THE Tribunal rejected the contention only on the ground that the wife was not able to give details of the persons with whom her husband expected her to have illicit relations. She could give no information regarding the physical features of such persons. She could not also narrate the date when this incident had happened. I feel that the approach of the trial Court was wholly erroneous. No woman of any esteem would like to make a description of persons who had come to prey on her. It was indeed even a vulgar suggestion at the trial and the Court ought not to have even allowed such questioning to have taken place. The counsel points out to the specific evidence given by the wife that she had narrated this incident to her husband's brother. She could not have examined his brother, but nothing prevented the respondent from citing him as witness and elicit from him that such an incident never took place and she had never narrated such an incident to his brother. I take that this singular circumstance of misbehaviour attributed to the husband to constitute cruelty entitling her to secure a decree for divorce. I will not examine the issue of desertion, for she left his matrimonial company on her own and she was trying to justify her separate living. The decree of dismissal of the trial Court is set aside and the appellant shall be entitled to a decree of dissolution of marriage by a decree of divorce.