PROFESSOR HARBANS SINGH Vs. KULDIP KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The parties are both in the academic field. Harbans Singh appellant is a Professor, while the wife Shrimati Kuldip Kaur, respondent, is a teachress. A petition under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for dissolution of the marriage by a decree of divorce was filed by the appellant against the respondent and the matter was tried in the Court of the Additional District Judge, Ludhiana. After considering the various aspects of the case, the learned Additional District Judge decided the only issue framed in the case against the appellant holding that he had failed to satisfy the Court that the respondent had deserted him. The petition of the appellant was, therefore, dismissed. The present appeal by the husband is directed against the said decision of the Additional District Judge, Ludhiana.

(2.) There is no gain-saying that under the amended Act, desertion of a petition by the opposite party for a continuous period of not less than two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition is now a ground for the dissolution of the marriage by a decree of divorce. This was not so before the amending Act and at that time this ground merely entitled the petitioner to a decree for judicial separation. The present petition has been obviously filed after the coming into force the amended Act, with a view to take benefit of the amended provision noticed above.

(3.) Not much useful purpose would he served to reproduce the allegations contained in the petition filed by the appellant and the counter- allegations levelled by the respondent in her written statement. Suffice it to say that according to the appellant the respondent had left his house and had started living with her parents (in the same town) and in spite of his best efforts to bring her back, she failed to return to him for about 2-1/2 years, which fact tantamounts to her deserting him. The respondent, on the other hand set up a dual and some what conflicting stand by contending firstly that she had been turned out of the house by the appellant in her bare clothes on June 14, 1973 after administering her a beating. She then lodged a report about this incident at Police Station Division No. 3 Ludhiana. In the same breath, she has tried to allege that the marriage of her real younger sister was scheduled to be held on June 17, 1973 and she had gone from the house of the appellant on June 14, 1973 in connection with that marriage. Thereafter, she did not return to the appellant and the reason which has been explained by her learned counsel during the course of the arguments in this appeal (and not in her own written statement) is that as the appellant did not attend the marriage of the respondent's sister on June 17, 1973 she was justified in not going back to his house. Both the parties also led some evidence making allegations and counter-allegations that they had tried to re-settle with each other but it was the other party who had frustrated these efforts. Several other facts mentioned in the pleadings hardly need notice as they are not material to the determination of the present controversy. In regard to efforts for reconciliation, it may he stated that Mr. Sukhpat Rai Wadehra, Advocate, was appointed by the trial Court as a Local Commissioner to make efforts for reconciliation between the parties but the said Local Commissioner failed in his efforts and made a brief report to the trial Court. In the present appeal when the matter was heard at the motion stage by the Bench on February 20, 1978, both the parties were present in person and the order recorded by the Bench is that reconciliation could not be effected.