Jagjit Kaur vs Ekam Singh

A decree for restitution of conjugal rights has been passed by the Court of first instance against Shrimati Jagjit Kaur appellant on the petition of her husband. Shri Ekam Singh respondent u/s 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Feeling aggrieved the lady has come up in appeal.

The parties had been married in 1946 and they had lived together as husband and wife for about twenty years after that marriage. A female child had been born from this wedlock on 26-3-1962 and is at present in the appellant custody. The respondent''s case was that in 1968 the appellant wanted him to migrate to her village as her parents were dead and her uncle was too old to look after and till the land. As the respondent had declined to accede to her wishes she had left him in the month of Bhadon of the year 1968 A. D. The appellant''s case on the other hand was that she had gone to her parents'' house for the delivery of the child 7-8 years before the filing of the petition for restitution of conjugal rights and that nobody had ever come to take her back. She now refused to go back to her husband on the ground that she was being beaten and ill-treated in his house. The petition for restitution of conjugal rights was further described to be a counter-blast to a civil suit filed by the appellant for maintenance.

The learned trial Court has believed the evidence examined by Shri Ekam Singh respondent for very cogent reasons. The respondent''s witnesses were fully corroborated by official records. A Vaccinator from Garhdiwal, a town near the respondent''s village Rana, had produced his records to show that the parties had been vaccinated twice in the years 1965 and 1968 in that village. The last vaccination was on 4-9-1968. There could be no better proof of the fact that the appellant was living with her husband up to that date. A doctor in charge of the civil dispensary at Garhdiwala had then proved by reference to the hospital records that the appellant had remained an indoor patient in that hospital for about a week in the month of June 1966. She had been described in the hospital records as a resident of village Rana. After the appellant had left her house in Village Rana, the Respondent had made an application Exhibit P. I. dated 29-1-1969 to the Gram Panchayat at Argowal--the place to which the appellant belonged before her marriage. This application has been proved by the Sarpanch who had been sworn into the witness box by the appellant herself. The witness had made the endorsement Exhibit P. I./A on the back of this application saving that the Panchayat had no jurisdiction in the mater and that the application was being returned on that account. The facts recited in the application made immediately after the appellant had left her husband''s house may seem to fully corroborate the evidence examined by the respondent. The evidence in rebuttal was most unreliable and was rightly disbelieved by the learned Court below. Her suit for maintenance has since been dismissed and there has been no appeal. The finding presumably was that the appellant had no just cause for staying away from her husband.

Shri Luthra, the learned counsel for the appellant has relied on Santosh Kaur v. Mehar Singh 1966 Cur LJ 417 (Punj) and Sadhu Singh Balwant Singh v. Smt. Jagdish Kaur, AIR 1969 Punj and Har 139 but every case has to be decided on its own facts. The respondent had filed his petition for restitution of conjugal rights within a couple of years of his wife having left him. In the meanwhile he had been making attempts out of court to prevail upon her to come back. Exhibit P. I. evidences one such attempt made by him within a few months of the separation.

There are no grounds for interference and the appeal is dismissed. Shri Ram Lal Aggarwal who appears for the respondent does not press for any order for costs.

Appeal dismissed.