TULSI BAI Vs. CHUNILAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a first appeal against the judgment and decree of the District Judge, udaipur, dated 3rd December, 1953, in an application for divorce wider the Hindu marriage Act, 1955.

(2.) THE appellant is the wife Mst. Tulsi Bai while the contesting respondent No. 1 is the husband Chunilal. It is common: ground between the parties that they were married some thirty years ago before the present application came to be filed on the 19th July, 1958, and that there Is one son named Shantilal born of this marriage, who was 10 years of age In 1958. !t is also admitted that the respondent husband had instituted a suit being No. 220 of Smt. 1989 (corresponding to some time in 1932 A. O.) for restitution of conjugal rights, against the appellant, and that suit was decreed in his favour subject to the condition that he must file a surety bond for a certain sum of money to the effect that he would not ill-treat his wife. It appears that the husband was not able to file the bond and consequently the appellant remained at her father's house for a period of about two years before they resumed their conjugal relations. The respondent's case, was that relations between him and the appellant had become strained because she was a woman of loose character and had developed illicit connection with respondent No. 2 Mohan on the 9th March, 1957. It was further alleged that she got the respondent beaten by her brother and father and eventually left her husband's home more than two years ago taking with herself some gold and silver ornaments, the particulars of which have been mentioned in paragraph (10) of the application. Consequently the respondent prayed that a decree for divorce be awarded in his favour and, in the alternative, a decree for judicial separation be granted.

(3.) THE appellant resisted this application. Her case, put briefly, was that until about four or five years before the present application, was filed by her husband, she had steadfastly lived with, and under the roof of, her husband in spite of all the ill-treatment which he afforded to her, the reason being that he was addicted to drink. She further contended that she had been forcibly turned out by her husband on the 19th April, 1955, after being deprived of all the ornaments which she had on her person including her own 'stridhan'. Thereupon, her case is that she was compelled to make an application in the criminal court under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which resulted in her husband being bound down for good behaviour. Her case further is that she had also made an application for maintenance under Section 488, Cr. P. C. In the criminal court which was allowed right upto the High Court and a maintenance allowance of rsection 20/- per mensem for herself and her son was ordered to be paid by her husband Chunilal to her, but as the latter was bent upon flouting this order, he was ordered to serve a sentence of imprisonment in jail more than once. To sum up, the case of the appellant, therefore, was that the present application by chunilal was just a device to get rid of the effect of the erder of maintenance which had been passed against him by the criminal court.