ROSE HILL Vs. LUKE CHILL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit consists of a petition for divorce by the wife against her husband on the ground of his alleged adultery, cruelty and desertion, and a cross-petition brought by the husband against the wife and a co-respondent named Nicola Kandelaft asking for a divorce on the ground of the wife's adultery.

(2.) On the wife's petition being called on and after I had read the two petitions, I asked counsel for the wife whether he was in a position to put his client into the box to deny the accusations against her which had been made in the husband's petition. They included in particular an allegation that the wife had travelled with the co-respondent in the same cabin from Bombay to Marseilles by the steamer Loyalty in December 1919 and that the only other occupant of that cabin was a small boy aged eight or thereabouts. Mr. Davar admitted that his client had travelled on that steamer and, after consulting his client, he told the Court that he was not in a position to call his client to contest the Lusband's allegation against her in that respect.

(3.) There then remained the allegations which she made against the husband on the ground of his desertion and cruelty. As regards the question of desertion, counsel for the husband took the point that the desertion required to be proved under the Act was desertion within the meaning of Section 3, Sub-section 9, viz., an abandonment against the wish of the person charging it. He pointed out that here the wife left the petitioner of her own wish and not of her husband's wish. Moreover, it was clear from certain correspondence which took place almost immediately, between her pleader and her husband and from a letter written by the husband to the wife that it was in no way his wish that she should leave the house in this way. I should explain that the marriage took place on June 2 and that the wife left her husband on June 27. On putting this to Counsel for the wife and asking him whether he wished for leave to amend, counsel after consulting his client said that the real reason for leaving him was something different from what was stated in the pleadings, and that he had no objection to his olient's petition being dismissed.