RENU BALA Vs. SURINDER KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the judgment and decree dated December 5, 1987, of the Additional District Judge, Patiala, allowing the husband's petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and dissolving the marriage between the parties.

(2.) Surinder Kumar was married to Renu Bala on August 14, 1982, according to Hindu rites. The admitted case of the parties is that the couple lived together upto December 5, 1982. No child was born. The case of the petitioner-husband is that the respondent-wife passed totally unwarranted and hurtful remarks against him saying that he was illiterate, had no manners, behaved like an animal and was a duffer. On one occasion, she took kerosene oil, sprinkled the same all over the place in the house and tried to set the house on fire. Timely action of the petitioner-husband and intervention of some others saved the situation. She went to the extent of slapping the husband and giving beating to the other members of his parental family. When she was asked to cook food or even prepare tea, she declined to do so saying that she was not petitioner's servant and if he so desired, he could keep a servant. The petitioner-husband was, however, not in a position to engage a servant. The respondent-wife is further stated to have refused sex to the petitioner after November 4, 1982. Further, it was alleged that the respondent-wife was arrested by the police in proceedings under Section 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in suspicious circumstances along with a person named Pawan Kumar of Ludhiana, which gave rise to the inference that the respondent-wife was of loose moral character. The petitioner-husband, therefore, claimed dissolution of marriage on the ground of cruelty saying that it would be harmful and injurious for him to live with the respondent- wife under the same roof and that by the aforesaid actions, the respondent had caused mental as well as physical cruelty to the petitioners. Dissolution of the marriage was also claimed on the ground of desertion for a period of more than two years as the respondent-wife had withdrawn from the society of the petitioner since December 5, 1982, with an intention to bring cohabitation permanently to an end.

(3.) The petitioner-husband filed a petition under Section 9 of the Act on January 2, 1983. It was later on withdrawn on January 19, 1984. Thereafter, the petitioner filed a petition under Section 13 of the Act on December 22, 1984. The parties reached a compromise dated December 13, 1985, which was reduced into writing. According to the compromise, the husband agreed to return articles of dowry and pay a sum of Rs. 5,000/- to the wife upto January 10, 1986, and on this being done marriage between the parties was to be got dissolved under Section 13-B of the Act on the ground of mutual consent. The case of the petitioner-husband is that he returned the articles of dowry as well as paid the stipulated sum of Rs. 5,000/- and accordingly the parties instituted a joint petition under Section 13-B of the Act on January 2, 1986. However, the respondent-wife failed to appear and the petition was, therefore, dismissed on January 14, 1986. It was after one year later on January 19, 1986, that the present petition under Section 13 of the Act was instituted.