KONDAL RAYAR REDDIAR Vs. RANGANAYAKI AMMAL ALIAS AMIRTHAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the husband against the decree of the District Judge of South Arcot, dismissing his suit for restitution of conjugal rights against the first defendant, his wife, on the ground that he was guilty of legal cruelty; The plaintiff's case is that he married the first defendant about 18 years ago, that he lived with her as husband and wife till she left him, that he had to marry a second wife as the first defendant had no issue, that the first defendant left him about 19 months before he filed his plaint, at the instigation of the second defendant, her father, and the other defendants have induced her to stay away from the husband and that he was entitled to restitution of conjugal rights against the first defendant. The first defendant pleaded that the husband was guilty of cruelty, that she was ill-treated by him that he falsely charged her with an attempt to poison him, and that when she went to the husband's house at the request of her father, he pushed her out by the neck and threatened to slipper her if she ever crossed his threshold. The learned District Judge has believed the evidence of the defendants and their witnesses and refused the plaintiff any relief.

(2.) Mr. T.M. Krishnaswami Aiyar who appears for the appellant contests the findings of fact arid argues that, on the facts found, no legal cruelty has been established. The admitted facts are, that the first defendant was married to the plaintiff when she was quite young that she lived with him as man and wife for about 10 years, that, as she had no issue, the plaintiff married a second wife, about 1913, that the first defendant continued in her husband's house for about five years after the second marriage and has left the husband's protection. She filed a petition for maintenance on 14 November 1918 before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Tindivanam and he passed an order in her favour on 22 February, 1919 and the revision petition by the plaintiff against that order was dismissed by the High Court on 28 July 1919. He filed this suit on 7 April 1919.

(3.) The plaintiff, as his first witness, swears that he lived with the first defendant as man and wife till she left Mm without any ostensible reason. His suggestion for her leaving him is that the father applied to him for a loan of Rs. 1,006 for the purpose of prosecuting a case against one Kamalatchi Ammal and he refused to lend him money whereupon the father took the daughter away and refused to send Her back. He denies the allegation that he suspected his wife of an attempt to poison him and denies the acts of cruelty. The plaintiff is a man in well- to-do circumstances and seems to be very influential in his own village. His evidence is supported by P.W. No. 3, his peternal aunt, a widow living in his family. The other witnesses on his side do not throw any light on the matters in dispute. On the other hand, the first defendant has been examined as D.W. No. 1 and she says that there were no marital relations between her and the plaintiff after he married his second wife, that he would not even speak to her, that he took away her jewels on some pretext, that she was made to do household work like a servant, that he abused her when she took some butter-milk to him to be taken with his food, that he did not drink the butter-milk but got up from his unfinished meal and said that he would not drink from her hand even in his next birth, that he would not allow her to touch the child of the second wife though the child was attached to her, that when he suffered from a slight ailment, he charged her with having put poison in his coffee, that he used very violent language to her, that he and his mother gave directions that she should not enter the kitchen which was the only room she had entered up to that time after the second marriage and that she, unable to bear the cruel treatment, left the house and went to Korkady to live with her father and mother and that the father after sometime brought her to her husband's house and when she entered the house he came from inside and necked her out. Her evidence is supported by that of her father as regards her being pushed out by the neck when he took her to her husband's house. D.W. No. 4, the village Munsif of the place, against whom no serious motive has been alleged says that he was sent for on one occasion by the plaintiff, that when he went to his house, his mother and peternal aunt showed him a. Karundagam (a small metallicbox) and asked him to open it and he did so and it emitted a bad smell. He was told that the first defendant was keeping that medicine, for poisoning her husband. He asked that the first defendant should be sent for and as she was, unable to, go to hint she sent word that it was kept by her lot) stomach-ache and he was afterwards told that she proved the innocuousness of the medicine by taking it herself. The other I witnesses support he evidence of the first defendant that the husband consider-i ed her to be a disgusting woman and said: that he would have no relations with her.