KING Vs. KING

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (After giving the facts and on a scrutiny of evidence finding the adultery of respondent proved, the Judgment proceeded). There remains, however, another matter with which I have to deal, and that is the question whether, in the circumstances of this case, the petitioner is entitled to the relief which he seeks. It is clear, to my mind that the petitioner has been guilty of considerable delay in the institution of these proceedings. The explanation which he gives amounts to this. He says that he did not take proceedings against his wife, after he had discovered her in bed with the co-respondent on 18 June, because he thought his story, without further corroboration would not be believed, and that, after the correspondent's garments and shoes, had been surreptitiously removed from the petitioner's premises, he found himself in the position of having no tangible evidence to support his story. I have already indicated that if the petitioner's story is accurate in every detail there was available the evidence of his nephew, Erie, who was said to be sleeping in the place which has been described as the pantry, and who was aroused by the co-respondent seeking to take refuge in that place. According to the petitioner, the co-respondent went quietly into this pantry and awakened Eric Ryan by saying quite calmly : "uncle has returned, you better get up," or words to that effect. That of itself strikes me as being a very unlikely thing for the co-respondent to have done seeing that he was being violently pursued by the petitioner and being chased through the different rooms of the fiat but it does appear from the petitioner's story that the co-respondent did either go into the pantry or knock at the door or do something which must have indicated to Eric Ryan that a stranger was in the flat. That of itself would have afforded very ample and satisfactory corroboration of the petitioner's story. For some reason or other, the petitioner did not see fit to call Eric Ryan in these proceedings, even now that he has brought his affairs before the Court. The explanation given is the one I have already referred to viz., that the probability was that Eric Ryan would decline to say anything which might be of assistance to the petitioner as against the respondent who was his aunt by blood.

(2.) I am not at all disposed to accept the explanation given by the petitioner with regard to his inaction and his failure to take proceedings at or about the time when these events took place, Had he really been burning with a sense of the wrong which had been done to him by the co-respondent, I think lie would have found time and made an occasion to go and take legal advice with regard to the position with a view to ascertaining whether he was likely to succeed if he took proceedings for divorce. I take the view that, at that time, the petitioner was more or less content to let his wife go, and it may be that they were living on such terms that the petitioner was rather glad to be relieved of the presence of his wife. At any rate, it seems clear to my mind that at that time he was not so righteously indignant either with his wife or the co-respondent that he had any intention of taking proceedings at all, because he admits that, for the space of a year or more, he really made no serious attempt to obtain any evidence in corroboration of his own story. It is a very significant fact that, when this case finally does come before the Court, the main evidence, on which the petitioner relies, is the evidence of persons who, one would have expected, would have been available to the petitioner from the very. outset, viz., Mr. Dunn and the three servants. It seems to me that if the petitioner could obtain the evidence of these four persons in the year 1926 or 1928, he could just an easily, or possibly more easily, have obtained that evidence in the year 1920. To some extent, the same observation applies with regard to the evidence in connexion with the events at Darjeeling. It is quite true that the petitioner says that what put him on enquiry with regard to Darjeeling was the fact that in October 1927, he received a letter from Mr. Wallace, but even that did not have the effect of causing the petitioner to institute proceedings. Indeed he does not seem to have pursued the matter, because right up to the very moment when this case was coming for trial, he had not, as far as I can see, obtained any proof other from Mrs. Wallace or from Mr. Singh, and actually an application was made to mo that this case should be postponed in order that the petitioner might get the evidence of these witnesses from Darjeeling. It is a significant and curious feature of the ease, therefore, that the petitioner really did not get any of the evidence with which he now establishes his contentions, until just before this case had come for trial. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that had no other proceedings taken place between the parties this husband would have been quite content to go on living apart from his wife and to continue to permit her to live in adultary with the correspondent. It appears that the husband was finally aroused to action by reason of the fact that the respondent removed certain articles of furniture and he was so incensed at his wife's action that he promptly took proceedings against her in the police Court with regard to the removal of the furniture and then for the first time publicly made a charge against his wife of having committed adultery with the co-respondent.

(3.) After those proceedings, his wife instituted civil proceedings in this Court, as I understand, in respect either of some of the same articles of furniture or some other articles of furniture, which were in the flat at Soaldah, and it is only after she had retorted upon the petitioner by taking civil proceedings as a sort of quid pro quo for the criminal proceedings which ho himself brought that at last he was stung into instituting proceedings for a dissolution of his marriage. It does not really matter which of these persons first made accusations against the other with regard to the morning of 18 June 1926, having regard to the fact that I have come to the conclusion that the petitioner's story is substantially the correct story. What does matter is that the husband should have remained quiescent with the knowledge of his wife's infidelity and misconduct and have taken no steps to vindicate his honour until the wife had aroused his indignation by reason of her action in regard to the furniture. I cannot help coming to the conclusion, therefore, that the petitioner seems to have set a higher value on his furniture than upon his wife's honour.