DEVI SINGH Vs. SUSHILA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a husband's appeal directed against the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge, Jodh-pur, dated 25-8-69 dismissing the husband's petition under Section 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, hereinafter to be referred as the "act", against his wife, the respondent here.

(2.) DEVI Singh was married to Smt. Sushila Devi on 17-4-61 at Jodhpur in accordance with the Hindu rites. After their marriage the couple lived together upto 18-4-63. Thereafter, according to the husband, Smt. Sushila Devi withdrew herself from the society of the husband petitioner without any reasonable excuse and since then she has been living apart from him. According to the husband, although he had made repeated requests to his wife to return to his house, she had evinced no interest in coming back to the husband's house to live with him. On the contrary, he proceeded to say, that the wife disliked the company of her husband and would never live with him. Prior to the petition under Section 10 (1) (a) of the Act filed on 12-3-68, the husband had filed an application under Section 9 of the Act for restitution of conjugal rights, but that application came to be dismissed by the learned District Judge, Jodhpur on 11-11-65 on the ground that there was positive evidence for showing that the husband had been cruel towards the wife and she and her child were neglected by the husband who did not even provide food for them. The husband came up in appeal to this Court against the judgment of the learned District Judge in the case for restitution of conjugal rights, but his appeal was dismissed in default on 6-3-68. It is thereafter that the present petition under Section 10 (1) (a) of the Act was made by the husband.

(3.) THE present petition was based on the ground of desertion; the husband's case in a nut-shell being that the wife was living apart from him and had no intention to return to him and for it there was no reasonable excuse for her.