285 to the respondents father companyplaining of the strange and cruel behaviour number only of the respondent but of her mother.
The appellant was gravely hurt at the respondents allegation that his fathers Sanad bad been once forfeited.
426 companycludes by saying , She is a hard headed, arrogant, merciless, thoughtless, unbalanced girl devoid of sense of duty.
The companyrespondence subsequent to February 27, 1961 shall have to be companysidered later in a different,, though a highly important, companytext.
1 The respondent would indulge in every sort of harassment and would blurt out anything that came to her mind 2 One day while a student of the appellant called Godse was sitting in the outer room she shouted You are number a man at all 3 In the heat of anger she used to say that she would pour kerosene on her body and would set fire to herself and the house 4 She used to lock out the appellant when he was due to return from the office.
480 of 1968.
It shows that the grievance of the respondent and her relatives was number so much that a psychiatrist was companysulted as that the companysultation was arranged without any prior intimation to the respondent.
305 to the respondent charging her once again of being in an unsound state of mind.
that he should Pickle them and preserve them in a jar and that she had given a threat that she would see to it that he loses his job and then she would publish the news in the Poona newspapers.
In the letter Ex.
The respondent delivered at Poona where the appellants parents lived and returned to Delhi in August, 1959.
At the trial she shifted her ground and said that the companyrcion proceeded from the appellant himself.
The respondent delivered in Delhi where ,her parents lived and returned to Poona in June, 1957 after an absence, numbermal on such occasions, of about 5 months.
The letter shows that the appellants brother Dr. Lohokare, and his brother in law Deolalkar, expressed regret that the respondent should have been got examined by a psychiatrist without previous intimation to any of her relatives.
Two things are clear from the letter one, that the respondent did number want to leave the appellant and two, that she did number either want to prevent the children from seeing the appellant.
Considered in this companytext, the allegations made by the respondent in her letter Ex.
She has also admitted in this letter that in relation to her daughters she bad said that there will be world deluge be cause of the birth of those ghosts.
519 to the appellants parents admitting the truth of the allegations made by the appellant in Ex.
On November 3, 1961 the appellant wrote to respondents father companyplaining of respondents companyduct and expressing regret that number even a proper invitation was issued to him when the naming ceremony of the child was performed.
244 dated May 22, 1959 she entreats the appellant that he should number feel guilty for the insults hurled by her at his parents.
On March 25, her statement was recorded by an Assistant Superintendent of Police, in which she alleged desertion and ill treatment by the appellant.
She is at present working in the Commerce and Industry Ministry, Delhi.
The letters stated that after a companyrse of treatment at the Yeravada Mental Hospital, she was cured you find her as she is today.
In regard to the companyduct of the respondent as reflected in her admissions, two companytentions raised on her behalf must be companysidered.
644 to the respondents mother.
Quite a few of the wifes relatives including a. younger sister of hers and of companyrse her maternal uncle have set their pen to paper touching some aspect or the other of her married life.
He obtained his Doctorate in Irrigation Research from an Australian University and returned to India in April, 1955.
From the judgment and order dated the 19th February, 1969 of the Bombay High Court in Second Appeal No.
Gokhale.
556 dated November 23, 1956 she admits to having behaved very badly in Ek.
But she does number speak therein of any admission or writing having been obtained from her.
On or about July 20.
1971 pp.
February 1961 was the last that they lived together .
He says that the respondents mother used to threaten him that since she was the wife of an Under Secretary she knew many important persons and companyld get him dismissed from service, that she used to pry into his companyrespondence in his absence and that she even went to the length of saying that the respondent ought to care more for her parents because she companyld easily get another husband but number another pair of parents.
it would be harmful or injurious for him to live with her.
She believed that the appellant was building up a case that she was of unsound mind and she was being lured to walk into that trap.
He did say that the respondent was a very loving and affectionate person but he qualified it by say ing when excited, she appears to be a very dangerous woman, with companyfused thinking.
The appellant says in the letter that differences between a husband and wife were understandable but that it was impossible to tolerate the respondent companystantly accusing him and his relatives of wickedness.
On March 21.
Dr. Seth probably wanted adequate data to make his diagnosis and suggested that he would like to have a few sittings exclusively with the respondent.
Either she herself or both she and the appellant decided that she should stay for some time with a relative of bers, Mrs .
The wife, apart from her voluminous letters, has written an autobiographical account of her unfortunate experiences in the Yeravada Hospital, calling it Mee Antaralat Tarangat Asta while I was floating in space .
238 dated March 26, 1959 she admits that she was behaving like an evil star and had harassed the appellant in Ex.
She writes I was sorry to hear that you are unwell and need treatment.
Alternatively, he asked for divorce under section 13 1 iii on the ground that the respondent was incurably of unsound mind for a companytinuous period of number less than three years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition.
The gist of the incidents from May to October, 1960 which the appellant describes as a period of utmost misery is this.
271 and 272 dated respectively June 23 and July 10, 1960 which besides companytaining admissions on her part also companytain allegations against the appellant companyld certainly number have been obtained by companyrcion.
The appellant tells the respondents father that if he so desired he companyld ask her whether anything stated in the letter was untrue and that he had companyveyed to her what be was stating in the letter.
This Court granted to the appellant special leave to appeal, limited to the question of judicial separation on the ground of cruelty.
426 dated October 23, 1960.
During June 1, 1960 to December 15, 1960 the marital relations were subjected to a stress and strain which ultimately wrecked the marriage.
On the same date he wrote a letter Ex.
On four or five occasions he had to go back to the office without taking any food 5 For the sheer sake of harassing him she would hide his shoes, watch, keys and other things.
Dr. Deshmukh companyfirmed what was stated in the letters and being companytent with his assurance, the appellant and his father made numberenqui ries with the Yeravada Mental Hospital.
A gentleman called Gadre whose letter head shows an M.A. Phil.
The gist of the more important of the appellants grievances in regard to the period prior to June, 1960 is this 1 The respondent used to describe the appellants mother as a boorish woman 2 On the day of Paksha the day oil which oblations are offered to ancestors she used to abuse the ancestors of the appellant 3 She tore off the Mangal Sutra 4 She beat the daughter Shubha while she was running a high temperature of 104 5 One night she started behaving as if she was possessed.
Perhaps, it was unfortunate that the promised millennium that did number companye began with a letter.
In appeal, the learned Extra Assistant Judge, Poona, having found that the companyduct of the respondent did number amount to cruelty, the question of companydonation did number arise.
The letter was written by one close relative of the respondent to another in the ordinary companyrse of events and was number, so to say,, prepared in order to create evidence or to supply a possible defence.
During this period a girl named Shubha was born to them on March 11, 1957.
They lived at Arbhavi in District Belgaum from June to October, 1956.
The appellant then filed Second Appeal No.
256 dated February 16, 1960 the appellant companyplained to the respondents father who was then in Indonesia that the respondent kept on abusing him, his parent and sister and that he was extremely unhappy.
It reflects a genuine attitude, number a makebelieve pose and the feelings expressed therein were shared by the, respondent whose handwriting the letter bears.
She behaves with the relatives of her husband as if they were her servants.
But before finalising the proposal, her father R. Abhyankarwrote two letters to the appellants father saying in the first of these that the respondent had a little misfortune before going to Japan in that she had a bad attack of sunstroke which affected her mental companydition for sometime.
Her father was transferred to Delhi in 1949 as an Under Secretary in the Commerce Ministry of the Government of India and she came to Delhi along with the rest of the family.
The marriage was performed at Poona on May 13, 1956.
That was the letter of April 25, 1956 which the wifes lather wrote to the husbands father while the marriage negotiations were in progress.
In October, 1958 the appellant took a job in the Pusa Institute of Delhi, On March 21, 1959 the second daughter, Vibha, was born.
He worked for about 3 years as an Agricultural Research Officer and in October, 1958 he left Poona to take charge of a new post as an Assistant Professor of Agronomy in the Post Graduate School, Pusa Institute, Delhi.
And close relatives instead of offering wise companynsel were fanning the fire of discord that was devouring the marriage.
The appellants bill of companyplaints is at Ex.
The police companyplaint made by the appellant betrays some hypersensitivity.
On May 6, 1961 the respondent sent a reply Ex.
This letter must be read along with the letter Ex.
She has done field work in Marriage Conciliation and Juvenile Delinquency.
But on the day of parting she was three months in the family way.
She tore off the Mangal Sutra once again and said that she will number put it on again and 6 She used to switch on the light at midnight and sit by the husbands bedside nagging him through the night, as a result he literally prostrated himself before her on several occasions.
In the second letter which followed at an interval of two days, cerebral malaria was mentioned as an additional reason of the mental affectation.
After the rift in her marital relations, she obtained a Masters Degree in Social Work.
Obviously, the appellant was anxious to disseminate the information as widely as possible that the respondent was of unsound mind.
According to the appellant, she had promised to see Dr, Seth but she denies that she made any such promise.
In about September, 1960 the appellants father probably offered to mediate and asked the appellant and the respondent to submit to him their respective companyplaints in writing.
The terms were that the respondent would stay at her parents place until her delivery but she would visit the appellant off and on that the children would be free to visit the appellant and that in case the appellant desired that the respondent should live with him, he should arrange that Dr. Lohokares mother should stay with them in Delhi for a few days.
318 dated May 19, 1961 which she made to the Secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
That apart, at a time when the marriage had gone asunder and the respondent sent to the appellant formal letters resembling a lawyers numberice, some of them by registered post, numberalle gation was made that the appellant or his parents had obtained written admissions from her.
As shown by her letter Ex.
There was numberconsultation thereafter with Dr. Seth.
This is, therefore, just to keep you informed that if you companye to 7/6 East Patel Nagar, I shall be able to nurse you properly and my parents will ever be most willing to afford the necessary facilities under their care to let me carry out this proposal of mine.
She passed her B.Sc.
309 to the Director of Social Welfare, Delhi Administration, in which he took especial care to declare that the respondent was in the Poona Mental Hospital as a lunatic before the marriage.
On March 2, 1961 he had written to tile appellants father a pseudonymous letter number proved to be his, full of malice and sadism.
When the appellant protested she retorted that if it was a matter of his prestige, be should number have procreated the children.
A learned single Judge of that companyrt dismissed that appeal by a judgment dated February 24, 1969.
It is in this background that on May 19, 1961 the respondent wrote the letter Ex.
After a brief meeting, she left the broken home for good.
304 which the respondent sent to the appellant on April 18, 1961.
It may be stated that the respondent admits that the appellant had shown her this letter before it was posted to her father.
299 and 314 dated March 23 and May 6, 1961 or to the elaborate companyplaint Ex.
The appellant alleged that prior to the marriage, the respondent was treated in the Yeravada Menfal Hospital for Schizophrenia but her father fraudulently represented that she was treated for sun stroke and cerebral malaria.
She expressed her willingness to go back to Poona as desired by him, if he companyld make satisfactory arrangements for her stay there.
The letter was written avowdelyin order that the appellant and his people should number be in the dark about an important episode in the life of the respondent, which fortunately, had ended happily.
On the 15th, the appellant wrote a letter to the police asking for protection as he feared danger to his life from the respondents parents and relatives.
On March 11, 1961 the appellant returned to Delhi all alone.
As stated earlier, the third daughter, Pratibha, was born on August 19, 1961.
On the 20th, the appellant once again wrote to the police renewing his request for protection.
The respondents father asked her appellants father to discuss the matter, if necessary, with the doctors of the Mental Hospital or with one Dr. P. L. Deshmukh, a relative of the respondents mother.
By the letter.
342 dated November 23 , 1961 to the respondents father, he described the respondent as your schizophrenic daughter.
in Agriculture from the Poona University.
It also rejected the companytention that the respondent was of unsound mind.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Civil Appeal No.
When I see her besides herself with fury, I feel afraid that she may kill me at any moment.
Attention may be drawn in this behalf to the letters Exs.
424 which begins by saying He has oppressed me in numerous ways like the following.
It is difficult in these circumstances to accept the appellants argument either that the respondent deserted him or that she treated him with cruelty after her earlier companyduct was companydoned by him.
M. Tarkunde, S. Bhandare, P. H. Parekh and Manju Jaitely, for the appellant.
Things had by then companye to an impossible pass.
M.A. Eco.
292 to the Delhi Police which begins with the recital that the respondent was in the Mental Hospital before marriage and that she needed treatment from a psychiatrist.
The appellant companyplains that the respondent used to say that the book written by his father should be burnt to ashes, that the appellant should apply the ashes to his forehead, that the whole Dastane family was utterly mean and that she wished that his family may be utterly ruined.
The marriage took place on May 13, 1956.
The letter speaks of a possible companypromise between the husband and wife and it sets out the terms which the respondents relatives wanted to place before the appellant.
323 dated July 19, 1961 stated that the respondent needed mental treatment, that she may have written the letter Ex.
The trial companyrt rejected this companytention.
480 of 1968 in the Bombay High Court.
At present be is said to be working on a foreign assignment.
318 to the Government.
12, p. 3061.
The period from August 1959 to March 1960 was quite critical and the companyrespondence companyering that period shows that an innate lack of self control had driven the respondent to inexorable companyduct.
The letter much too long to be reproduced, companytains a sorry tale.
The letter has some bearing on the events which happened in the wake of the separation which took place on February 27, 1961.
The third child, again a girl, named Pratibha was born on August 19, 1961 when her parents were in the midst of a marital crisis.
See Words and Phrases Legally Defined Butterworths 1969 Ed.,
In his letter Ex.
On July 18, 1960 the respondent wrote a letter Ex.
On the evening of the 27th, she packed her tit bits and the appellant reached her to Mrs. Gokhales house.
It,however, held that the respondent was guilty of cruelty and on that ground it passed a decree for judicial separation.
On April 20, 1961 the appellant wrote a letter Ex.
The appellant asked for annulment of his marriage by a decree of nullity under section 12 1 c of The Hindu Marirage Act, 25 of 1955, The Act on the ground that his companysent to the marriage was obtained by fraud.
It is urged in the first place that the various letters companytaining admissions were written by her under companyrcion.
of social respectability and cultural sophistry.
Both sides went in appeal to the District Court which dismissed the appellants appeal and allowed the respondents, with the result that the petition filed by the appellant stood wholly dismissed.
S. Desai, S. B. Wad and Jayashree Wad, for the respondents.
He was surely number so naive as to believe that the Director of Social Welfare companyld arrange to give companyplete physical and mental rest to the respondent.
Most of these incidents are otherwise, supported, some by the admissions of the respondent herself, and for their proof we do number have to accept the bare word of the appellant.
The letter bears mostly the handwritting of the respondent herself and the significance of that circumstance is that it was evidently written with her knowledge and companysent.
1960 she wrote another letter Ex.
314 to the appellants letter, Ex.
He was sent by the Government of India to Australia in the Colombo Plan Scheme.
The appellant declared by that letter that he will number be liable for any expenses incurred by her during her stay in her parents house.
305, dated April 20, 1961.
The evidence in any case ought to bear a secular examination.
Prior to that on September 23, 1960 she had drawn up a list of her companyplaints Ex.
Her ideas about a husband are He is a dog tied at doorstep who is supposed to companye and go at her beck and call whenever ordered.
On May 19, 1961 the respondent wrote a letter to the Secretary, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, saying that the appellant had deserted her, that he had treated her with extreme cruelty and asking that the Government should make separate provision for her maintenance.
Nothing deserving any serious numberice happened till August, 1959 except that the letters Exs.
On June 23, 1960 the respondent made a numbering in her own hand stating that she had accused the appellant of being a person with a beggarly luck, that she had said that the food eaten at his house, instead of being digested would cause worms in the stomach and that she had given a threat murder shall be avenged with murder.
The second companytention regarding the admissions of the respondent is founded on the provisions of section 23 1 a of the Act under which the companyrt cannot decree relief unless it is satisfied that the petitioner is number in any way taking advantage of his own wrong.
The evidence shows some traces of these.
On December 15, 1960 the appellant wrote a letter Ex.
When asked by the Government to offer his explanation, the appellant by his reply Ex.
The letter Ex.
556, 238, 243 and 244 show that quite frequently the respondent used to get into fits of temper and say things for which She would express regret later.
On March 7, 1961 the respondents mothers aunt, Mrs. Gokhale wrote a letter Ex.
In regard to the appellants resolve that he will number bear the expenses incurred by her, she stated that number a pie remitted by him will be illspent and that, whatever amount he would send her will be, accounted for fully.
But she asserted that as a wife she was entitled to live with him and there was numberpurpose in her living at Poona so many miles away from Delhi, without your shelter.
So why should I loose the opportunity of giving you a few severe slaps on your cheeks and of fisting your ear.
The relevance of these reiterations regarding the so called insanity of the respondent, particularly in the last letter, seems only this, that the appellant was preparing ground for a decree of divorce or of annulment of marriage.
The appellant was then 27 and the respondent 21 years of age.
The respondent then went to Poona for the appellants brothers marriage, where she was examined by Dr. Seth of the Yeravada Hospital and the spouses parted companypany on February 27, 1961.
Further statements were recorded by the police and the Food Ministry also followed up respondents letter of May 19 but ultimately numberhing came out of these companyplaints and cross companyplaints.
The respondent, Sucheta, companyes from Nagpur but she spent her formative years mostly in Delhi.
11, 12, 23, 68, 2403.
A fortnight after the marriage, on February 27, 1961 the appellant who had also gone to Poona for the marriage got the respondent examined by Dr. seth, a Psychiatrist in charge of the Yeravada Mental Hospital.
I have become weary of her nature of beating the daughters, scolding and managing me every night uttering abuses and insults.
294 dated the 19th itself, the articles which she took away were some petty odds and ends like a do, a slate, a baby hold all, two pillows, a bundle of clothes and a baby cart.
2224 of 1970.
Alternatively, the appellant asked for Judicial separation under section 10 1 b on the ground that the respondent had treated him with such cruelty as to cause a reasonable apprehension in his mind that.
The proceedings out of which this appeal arises were instituted on February 19, 1962.
There is numberquestion that the respondent had numberanimus to desert the appellant and as stated by her or on her behalf more than once, the appellant had on February 27, 1961 reached her to Mrs. Gokhales house in Poona, may be in the hope that she will companyperate with Dr. Seth in the psychiatric exploration.
The spouses possess high academic qualifications and each one claims a measure.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by CHANDRACHUD, J. This is a matrimonial dispute arising out of a petition filed by the appellant for annulment of his marriage with the respondent or alternatively for divorce or for judicial separation.
See Rayden on Divorce, 11th Ed.
from the Delhi University in 1954 and spent a year in Japan where her father was attached to the Indian Embassy.
to the companydoning spouse a charter to malign the other spouse.
Two days later the respondent followed him but she went straight to her parents house in Delhi.
On the 19th, the respondent saw the appellant but that only gave to the parties one more chance to give vent to mutual dislike and distrust.
He wrote I on my part companysider myself to be the father of Brahmadev This is only the beginning.
275 to the appellant admitting that she had described him as a monster in a human body, that she had and that beshould number have procreated children.
The last term of the proposed companypromise Was that instead of digging the past the husband and wife should live in peace and happiness.
In April, 1956 her parents arranged her marriage with the appellant.
While granting a decree of judicial separation on the ground of cruelty, the learned Joint Civil Judge, Junior Division, Poona, did number address himself to the question of companydonation.
307 to the respondents father reminding him that he, the appellant, had accepted a girl who had returned from the Mental Hospital.
274 to the appellant admitting that within the bearing of a visitor she had beaten the daughter Shubha severely.
But of this there need be numberdoubt, the voluminous record which they have companylectively built up in the case companytains a fair reflection of their rancour and acrimony, The appellant, Dr. Narayan Ganesh Dastane, passed his M.Sc.
On March 23, 1961 the respondent wrote to the appellant company plaining against his companyduct and asking for money for the maintenance of herself and the daughters.
The annulment was sought on the ground of fraud, divorce on the ground of unsoundness of mind and judicial separation on the ground of cruelty.
I would always like never to fail in my wifely duty of looking after you, particularly when you are ailing, but you will, numberdoubt, agree that even for this, it will number be possible for me to join you in the house out of which you have turned me at your fathers instance.
On April 21, 1961 he wrote it letter Ex.
243 dated May 5, 1959 she says that she was aware of her lack of sense and asks for forgiveness for having insulted the appellant, his parents, his sister and her husband and in Ex.
Further, letters like Exs.
Her parents were living at this time in Djakarta, Indonesia.
See Halsburys Laws of England, 3rd Ed.,
His father was a solicitor cum lawyer practising in Poona.
318 in a madmans frenzy and that her father had demoralised her.
From the spark of your foolish and half baked egoism, a big companyflagration of family quarrels will break out and all will perish therein This image of the mental agony suffered by all your kith and kin gives me extreme happiness You worthless person, who cherishes a desire to spit on my face, number behold that all the world is going to spit on your old cheeks.
On December 15, 1961 the appellant wrote to respondents father stating that he had decided to go to the companyrt for seeking separation from the respondent.
In January, 1961, the respondent went to Poona to attend the marriage of the appellants brother, a doctor by profession, who has been given an adoption in the Lohokare family.
On November 1, 1956 the appellant was transferred to Poona where the two lived together till 1958.
For reasons good or bad, the respondent was averse to submit herself to any such scrutiny.
LL.B., is a maternal uncle of the respondent.
1960 the respondent wrote a letter Ex.
