KAMALJIT BHULLAR Vs. NIMRAT PREET SINGH BHULLAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this Letters Patent Appeal, the appellant has challenged the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated March 7, 1990, allowing the appeal of the husband respondent, whereby the judgment and decree dated June 30, 1989, passed by the District Judge, Shimla, was set aside and a. decree for divorce was granted dissolving the marriage between the parties.

(2.) MARRIAGE between the parties was solemnised on November 7, 1980, at Nirankari Colony, Delhi. A son named Saravpreet was born on January 4, 1982. After the marriage, the parties resided at Ranchi, Bangalore and Shimla. At the time of marriage the husband was holding the rank of Captain in the Indian Army and remained posted at Ranchi and Bangalore but subsequently left the job to assist his widowed mother in managing the family business at Shimla. The relations between the parties became strained in the year 1985 and ultimately on August 13, 1986, a petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (Act No; 25 of 1955), (briefly the Act), was filed by the husband against the wife seeking a decree of divorce for dissolution of marriage on the ground that the wife after the solemnisation of marriage, had treated him with cruelty. The District Judge, Shimla, who tried the petition came to the conclusion that the respondent had not been in a position to establish by adducing legally competent evidence that the wife had treated him with cruelty as pleaded by him. He, however, was of the view that there had been some misunderstanding between the couple, which was not tackled properly resulting in litigation and the version given by the husband containing various instances of cruelty was not capable of being taken seriously. As a result of his findings, the petition was dismissed. The husband took the matter in appeal before this Court. The learned Single Judge has gone in minute details with respect to each of the instance constituting cruelty and has come to the conclusion that the evidence adduced by the husband was sufficient to warrant the finding that the wife had treated the husband, after solemnisation of marriage, with cruelty and there was no act on the part of husband condoning the acts of cruelty. The further conclusion on the basis of evidence and other factors on record is that the marriage has irretrievably been broken. On the basis of the findings recorded by him, the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge was set aside and the appeal filed by the husband was accepted by granting a decree for divorce dissolving the marriage between the parties.

(3.) THE legal concept of cruelty and the kind or degree of cruelty necessary to amount to a matrimonial offence have not been defined by any statute of the Indian Legislature relating to marriage and divorce; nor has the expression been defined in the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1950. The accepted legal meaning of this expression, which is rather difficult to define, had been 'conduct or such character as to have caused danger to life, limb or health (bodily or mental), or as to give rise to a reasonable apprehension of such danger'. In Dr. N.G. Dastane v. Mrs. S. Dastane, AIR 1975 SC 1534, the Supreme Court critically examined the matrimonial ground of cruelty and observed that the inquiry in any case had to be whether the conduct charged as cruelty is of such a character as to cause in the mind of the petitioner a reasonable apprehension that it will be harmful or injurious for him to live with the respondent. It was also pointed out that it was not necessary, as under the English law that the cruelty must be of such a character as to cause danger to life, limb or health or as to give rise to a reasonable apprehension of such a danger though, of course, harm or injury to health, reputation, the working character or the like would be an important consideration in determining whether the conduct of the respondent amounts to cruelty. What was required was that the petitioner must prove that the respondent has treated the petitioner with such cruelty as to cause a reasonable apprehension in his mind that it will be harmful or injurious for him to live with the respondent.