AMRIK SINGH P C S Vs. SURJIT KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant Amrik Singh, a P.C.S. Officer (now an I.A.S. Officer) on 10th November, 1963 sought judicial separation from his wife Shrimati Surjit Kaur, whom he had married on 16th November, 1958, on the ground of mental and physical cruelty resulting from her misconduct towards him and his family members. The central core of his grievance against respondent wife, which runs like a thread through the specific instances of her misbehaviour that have been quoted in the petition, is that she was of haughty temperament, highly disrespectful towards him and his entire family members, would pick up quarrel with him on trifling matters and continue on taunting and nagging him and his father and other family members in his presence and had been making such serious allegations against him as that of being impotent both in front of her own parents as also the friends of the petitioner, that her false accusations, taunts and nagging, ill-behaviour full of contempt and disrespect in presence of even outsiders constantly distressed him and very adversely affected his health; and when it becomes impossible to put up with such misbehaviour and conduct, and continued living with her any further involved the risk of totally wrecking his health, mental and physical, he took recourse to the present proceedings in order to save himself from further agony and the consequent danger therefrom to his mental and physical health.

(2.) Though the petitioner has dealt in great details the specific instances of respondent-wife's misbehaviour yet a brief summary of some of the salient allegations would suffice and these can be narrated thus :-

(3.) The respondent-wife in her reply refused the allegations of cruelty and depicted them as figments of petitioner husband's imagination. She has pleaded that she acted all through as a faithful and loyal wife to him. Narrating the marital history she stated that she lived in the company of the petitioner-husband at first up to 25th May, 1959; that from that day till 10th April, 1960 she stayed at her parental house; that they resumed joint cohabitation from 10th April, 1960 and continued to reside together till October 1963, and that in September, 1963, he was posted to Dharamsala and left her in hospital in Chandigarh for treatment of her suspected abortion, where she was eventually aborted on 11th October, 1963. Regarding incident No. (3), she maintained that for a few days, she was residing at the petitioners husband's parental house, his younger brother Tarlochan Singh, then a young lad of 16/17 years one night tried to misbehave with her, for which the petitioner's pitcher rebuked him and the petitioner also apologised to her and matter was closed. As to the incident No. (11), she stated that Shri Arjan Singh Advocate at Jagraon was friendly towards the petitioner-husband, that his association with the petitioner led to a hostile incident in Jagraon town, and that Shri Arjan Singh, Advocate, like the petitioner-husband, is also Nirankari. She held out Shri K.S. Raju brother-in-law, of the petitioner-husband, to be the villain of the pence & person who had instigated the petitioner to file the petition, for he was annoyed with her when she complained to the petitioner-husband regarding his misbehaviour towards her.