SATISH KUMAR KOHLI Vs. KIRAN BALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant's wife, Smt. Kiran Bala, Respondent, was granted an ex parte decree for judicial separation and nullity of marriage on her application under Sections 10 and 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (hereinafter briefly referred to as 'the Act') by the Additional District Judge at Ludhiana on 12th June, 1968. The Appellant had filed an application under Order IX. Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure (hereinafter briefly referred to as 'the Code') on 28th November, 1968, for the setting aside of that ex parte decree but this application has been dismissed by an order dated 20th April, 1970, on the grounds, inter alia, that the application was time-barred and that there was no sufficient cause for the setting aside of the decree. The husband has come up in appeal against that order.

(2.) The parties had been married according to Hindu rites at Ludhiana on 11th September, 1967. The Appellant was an Overseer in the Indian Institute of Technology in those days and had been allottee a quarter in the campus at Hauz Khas, New Delhi. One Shri S.K. Mehra was his colleague in the same office and had been allotted a quarter opposite to the quarter of the Appellant. His wife Smt. Sarla Mehra was a co-Respondent with the Appellant in the original proceedings for judicial separation and nullity of marriage.

(3.) The parties had lived together as husband and wife in the quarter in Hauz Khas, New Delhi, for a period of only about two months after the marriage. The Appellant was said to have resigned his job and to have vacated his own quarter. It was alleged that thereafter the parties had shifted to the quarter of Shri S.K. Mehra. The Respondent claimed to have seen the Appellant lying in bed with Mrs. Sarla Mehra and the belief that they were living in adultery was made a ground for judicial separation under Section 10(1)(f) of the Act. The annulment of the marriage had been claimed by the wife on grounds of fraud under Section 12(1)(c) of the Act. She was a minor at the time and her father had carried out the marriage negotiations. The Appellant was said to have wrongly stated to the Respondent's father before the marriage that he was holding the job of S.D.O. in the Central Public Works Department at Delhi and that he was a non-manglik when in fact he was a manglik. A false horoscope is said to have been supplied to the Respondent's father in support of the last mentioned misrepesentation. These flimsy grounds for the annulment of the marriage had been accepted as correct by the learned Court of first instance while granting a decree on the grounds, amongst others, of fraud. Anyhow, I am not seized of the case in an appeal or revision against the decree for nullity of marriage or judicial separation and it is not open to me at this stage to go into the adequacy or otherwise of the grounds on which this decree had been granted. The Respondent had examined about a dozen witnesses in support of her allegations before she was granted the ex parte decree. The grounds on which she had sought judicial separation were legally tenable.