LAXMAN DAS Vs. NIRMALA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a husband's appeal against the dismissal of his petition under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short, ''the Act' hereinafter), for divorce.

(2.) APPELLANT Laminas, a resident of Chain Raiji -ka -KatIa, Bundi, was married to Smt. Nirmala Devi, resident of Jhalawar, on 1st February, '79, according to Hindu rites. According to the petitioner -appellant after her marriage, Nirmala Devi, for some time, had lived with him, in her matrimonial home, at Bundi. A daughter was born to her out of this wedlock. The appellant has his aged parents. After the marriage, Nirmala Devi was insisting upon the appellant to live separately from his parents, to which, the latter did not agree. The respondent's behaviour towards the family members of the husband, was also not cordial. On one occasion, in the absence of the appellant, the wife had left her matrimonial home, without the husband's consent, and had gone to her other relations living at Bundi. The appellant had brought her back to his house. Again in (he year 1979, she had left for her parents' house at Jhalawar, while her husband was out, telling his parents that she would not come back. However, her husband had brought her back after persuation. In February, 1980, the spouses had gone to appellant's mother's sister at Kota, and while both of them were returning to Bundi on 8lh February, 80, by bus, the wife left the husband at the bus -stand; hired on auto -rickshaw; and left for Jhalawar, telling the husband that she would not come back. It was thus asserted that the wife bad deserted the husband on 8th February, 80. Consequently, the husband filed a petition for divorce, on 22nd September, 83.

(3.) THE District Judge, Bundi, accepted the version of the wife that it was the husband, who had left her at Kota and had made her to sit in a bus for Jhalawar, and be' did not accept (be appellant's version that it was the wife who had deserted him. The District Judge accepted the wife's case (bat she as well as her parents had come to Bundi to persuade the appellant, for keeping her with him. No initiative was taken by the appellant to bring his wife back. Although, it was not believed that the appellant and his parents had treated Nirmala Devi, with cruelty, but, the version of the wife was accepted that she bad not deserted her husband, but, she bad even been living at Bundi, in a rented house to exert pressure upon her husband, to keep her. Consequently, it was held that there was no animus deserendi on the pan of the wife, and that animus deserendi and separation did not co -exist.