DAVINDER KAUR Vs. GAGANDEEP SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant-wife is in appeal against the judgment and decree dated 17.01.2019 passed by the learned District Judge, Mansa, whereby petition filed by her under Sections 11, 12 and 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short 'the Act'), has been dismissed.

(2.) The appellant-wife filed the aforesaid petition with the averments that the marriage between the parties was solemnized on 2.4.2012 at Kharar, District Mohali. The respondent-husband had threatened to kill the brother of appellant-wife in case she did not marry him. She was brought by the respondent-husband to Chandigarh and forced her to file CRM-M-10037 of 2012 before this Court and succeeded in obtaining protection order dated 4.4.2012. The appellant-wife had signed the papers under such threats. The respondent- husband, thus, having forced her to live in his company, had committed rape upon her. The appellant-wife had been taken to Budhlada, where she was treated with cruelty. She somehow managed to come to her parental home and narrated her parents the entire facts, whereupon a Panchayat was convened and the appellant-wife was taken to her matrimonial home. Pursuant thereto on 27.6.2012, a writing in the form of a customary divorce was made and signed by the parties as also the witnesses. The respondent-husband had filed a false Civil Suit No. 18 of 2014 against the appellant-wife. The marriage between the parties never got consummated. The respondent- husband had committed the acts of cruelty, fraud, desertion, coercion, misrepresentation and blackmailing and, therefore, the appellant-wife was entitled to the decree of divorce.

(3.) The respondent-husband contested the divorce petition by filing his written statement, averring therein that the marriage had been solemnized with the free will of the appellant- wife. It was denied if any force was used to solemnize marriage between the parties. The respondent-husband had filed a civil suit for restraining the appellant-wife from contracting a second marriage, which was decreed by the Civil Court. After marriage, the parties lived together as husband and wife and the marriage got consummated and there was no act of rape committed by the respondent-husband upon the appellant-wife. As a matter of fact, after the marriage, the appellant-wife wanted to meet her parents and the respondent-husband left her there, where the appellant-wife had expressed her desire to stay for few days. However, she did not come back, as her parents refused to send her. Rather, signatures of the respondent were taken on some papers on the pretext that the same were necessary. The customary divorce was never written nor agreed to, at the behest of the respondent-husband.