JOGINDER KAUR Vs. LT COL R S GILL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On a petition under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act filed by Lt. Col. R.S. Gill against his wife Smt. Joginder Kaur, the learned Additional District Judge, Ludhiana, passed a decree of divorce in favour of the husband against the wife and dissolved their marriage with no order as to costs. Mst. Joginder Kaur has filed this appeal against the order of the learned Additional District Judge.

(2.) The parties were married on 21-4-1946 at Lahore. According to R.S. Gill, they lived together as husband and wife and cohabited at Lahore, Kurukshetra and Delhi and a daughter named Parmaljit Kaur was born out of the wedlock and she is alive.

(3.) The case of Mr. Gill is that Joginder Kaur was not interested in the marriage with him but agreed under pressure of her parents that he tried to prevail upon her to lead a happy married life, but she refused to join him, that whenever he used to come on leave from the army, he used to request her to come and live with him, that in the years 1947, 1948 and 1949 he remained posted in Janimu and Kashmir, that in 1949 he came on leave to Kurukshetra, but the brother of Joginder Kaur took her away on the excuse that father was seriously ill and wanted to see her, but it came out, to be an excuse to live away from her marital home, that he requested her to come and live with him but she refused and offered that he could come and live permanently at her father's house, that she had informed the Military authorities that she was not interested in living with the petitioner-respondent and that she has deserted him for not less than two years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition, so he claimed a decree of divorce or the ground of desertion on her part.