BOODAPATI ANKAMMA, WRONGLY DESCRIBED AS NANNURU ANKAMMA IN THE DECREE AND JUDGMENT OF THE LOWER COURT Vs. BOODAPATI BAMANEPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Much as I pity the lot of the unfortunate appellant who had been made a pawn in a discreditable game played by some of her misguided relatives, I do not find any ground on which I can interfere with the decision of the lower Appellate Court.

(2.) The plaintiff sued for a declaration that the defendant was not his legally wedded wife; and the allegations in the plaint imply either that there was no marriage in fact or in any event it did not amount to a valid marriage. It is common ground that the marriage, if any, took place under abnormal circumstances. The plaintiff was undoubtedly a young man-it makes very little difference whether he was 18 or 20 at the time and the defendant's witnesses agree that the plaintiff's parents who were well-to-do parents were not likely to agree to his marrying the defendant. It is accordingly the defendant's story that the marriage took place one evening in a stranger's house at a village four or five miles away from the village of the parties. D.W. 1 was the man who brought about the transaction. The defendant and her brother D.W. 5 were the only persons who on the bride's side went to that village in advance. The plaintiff admittedly came to that village in the company of D.W. 1 after the defendant and her brother had reached there, and it is then said that certain rites were gone through. It is also the defendant's story that after nightfall the plaintiff and the defendant returned to their own village, but instead of going to the plaintiff's parents house, the party returned to the defendant's house where the plaintiff and the defendant lived as man and wife for three days. The suggestion of the defendant is that this suit which was instituted within fifteen days after the events above referred to was instigated by the plaintiff's parents.

(3.) On the other hand, it is the plaintiff's story that not merely his parents but he himself was never a willing party to this alliance, that the proposal was never mentioned to him till he actually found himself in the house in the neighbouring village that evening, that he was decoyed to that village by D.W. 1 on a representation that he was merely going in search of a lost cow, that when he found himself in that house in the evening he was surrounded by people who had been got ready there beforehand, that it was only then that he was asked to go through a marriage form to which he objected, that he was compelled by some of the people assembled there to sit on the plank, that his hand was seized by D.W. 1 and made to tie the thali round the defendant's neck. He denies that he returned to the bride's house that evening or lived with her as man and wife for three days as alleged.