LAXMI DEVI Vs. BABU LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a wife's appeal and is directed against the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge, Jaipur District annulling her marriage under Section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, hereinafter to be referred as the "act", on the ground of wife's impotency and her consequent incapacity to consummate the marriage.

(2.) SMT Laxmi Devi, the wife, and Babulal, the husband, were married according to hindu rites on 17-2-1967. According to the husband, appellant Smt. Laxmi Devi had no vagina and was thus Impotent at the time of the marriage and continued to be so till the present proceedings for annulment under Section 12 of the Act were instituted on 3-7-1969. The husband relied on a certificate Ex. 1 given by one Dr. E. Peters (D. W. 3) who examined the wife on 6-1-1968 and found that the wife had no vagina. The wife resisted the application. She denied that she was impotent. According to her, she had a vagina and after the marriage she had been sleeping with her husband and the marriage had been duly consummated. She proceeded to say that she had been ill-treated by her husband and his people and was turned out of the house after being relieved of the ornaments given to her by her parents. She added that the husband wanted to marry one Mst. Pishta daughter of one Chhaganlal of Manoharpur and to restrain the marriage she had to file a suit in the Court of Munsif, Shahpura and it was at that stage that the husband came forward with the allegations that the wife was impotent. She further took the stand that her father got her treated and she was found to possess all the female characteristics and further as a result of a surgical operation her vagina was reconstructed on 9-7-1968. She Was thereafter examined on 13-41969 by Dr. Padma P. Mir Chandani and she certified that the wife had all the female characteristics.

(3.) THE main Issue that thus arose In the case was whether the wife was at the time of the marriage impotent and continued to be so till the presentation of the petition and had not consummated the marriage. Babulal, the husband, examined himself as P. W. 1. The wife examined herself as D. W. 1 and further produced Dr. Padma P. Mir Chandani D. W. 2 and Dr. E. Peters D. W. 3 in her evidence. Subsequently the husband made a request that the wife be sot examined by Dr. Miss Chandrawati Saxena, Professor. S. M. S. College, Jaipur and accordingly Dr. Saxena examined the wife and gave evidence as P. W. 2.