TANNI Vs. KALLU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) About six or seven years ago Mt. Tanni had the misfortune to marry a man named Kallu. Almost from the outset Kallu habitually beat his wife and finally loft her alone in his house and went to live with his maternal uncle leaving the woman in the house without any food so that eventually she went to her mother and has been with her ever since. Kallu was unwise enough to seek the assistance of the Court in a suit for restitution of conjugal rights and he presented himself before the Court of the First Additional Munsif of Cawnpore and cut a very sorry figure before him. The Additional Munsif of Cawnpore not only considered him to be definitely lying in the witness-box but believed him to be guilty of habitual cruelty with which his wife had charged him. The young woman went into the witness-box and she detailed a long sequence of acts of cruelty extending over nearly the whole period of her married life. Her mother supported her as regards some of these matters and several witnesses deposed that they saw Kallu quarrelling and beating his wife and in addition Gulzar Khan and Shubrati who were near neighbours, spoke of one occasion on which Kallu was sitting upon his wife's breast and beating her at a time when she was about to have a baby. The Additional Munsif of Cawnpore tried this matter with the utmost care. We have read the whole of his judgment and to us it appears that the conclusions of fact to which he came were amply supported by evidence and that he did come to a correct decision when he decided that this young woman had been submitted to such a habitual course of ill-treatment that no Court ought to order her again to consort with her husband.

(2.) The matter came before Mr. Mehta who, apparently without any evidence at all, in our view misdirected himself upon a most important matter. He seems to have approached this case from the point of view that people in the social position of Kallu and Mt. Tanni habitually resorted, the one to the beating of the wife and the other to submitting to the beating.

(3.) He says: There must have been occasional beating of the wife by the appellant as is commonly seen among illiterate persons of the lower strata of society to which the parties belong.