No fraud is committed if the husband was not aware of the wife’s actual date of birth and “Non- Mangalik” status: Bombay High Court
The Bombay High Court upheld a decision that no fraud is committed if the husband was not aware of the wife’s actual date of birth and “Non- Mangalik” status through the Division Bench of Justices A.S. Chandurkar and N.B. Surawanshi in the case of Kartik Narayan Dhawle v. Vaishali Kartik Dhawle (FAMILY COURT APPEAL NO.76 OF 2015)
FACTS OF THE CASE:
The appellant-husband filed the appeal under Section 19 of the Family Courts Acts, 1984, after his petition for judicial separation and, in the alternative, a judgement of divorce on cruelty and desertion grounds was denied by the Family Court.
According to his horoscope, the spouse was Mangalik, and he was looking for a female with a Mangalik horoscope. The biodata stated that the girl belonged to the same horoscope. After her marriage to the appellant, she began living with her husband’s joint family. Furthermore, it has been claimed that she evaded providing her educational certificates under the premise that they had been misplaced. When her father gave her educational documents, her husband was astonished to learn her exact date of birth, indicating that she was Non-Mangalik. She’d also failed BA-II.
The wife fled the marital home at midnight without alerting anybody, and she was discovered during the search with her brother and brother-in-law, who were bringing her to her maternal home. The husband and his family members went to get his wife, but her parents refused to send her and threatened to implicate them in a phony case. On that day, the wife, according to the husband, filed a fake complaint. The husband claimed that his wife harassed him mentally and physically. As a result, he claimed that his wife abandoned him due to bogus complaints submitted by the wife and husband from time to time.
The husband’s life had become unpleasant as a result of the wife’s constant torment. As a result, he filed a petition for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. While denying all of the foregoing charges, the wife stated that she was willing to reside with the husband and so requested that the husband’s petition be dismissed. The husband’s petition was denied by the Family Court, so he filed the current appeal.
JUDGEMENT:
During the appellant’s cross-examination, the Bench observed that he agreed that previous to his marriage, there were discussions as well as internal talks and that his sister had inquired about the respondent’s schooling as well as her family history. The appellant further acknowledged that he married the respondent because he liked her and that he did not make life decisions based on his horoscope. The marriage was completed after both families’ backgrounds, homes, and other data were verified.
Based on the foregoing, Bench concluded that neither the wife nor her family committed any deception.
The appellant failed to prove a case of fraud, and even if it is assumed that there was misrepresentation regarding the date of birth, it does not affect the appellant and respondent’s matrimonial relations, because the appellant failed to prove that he was Mangalik and intended to marry the girl with Mangalik Yog. The appellant’s father agreed that for the first two years of the marriage, there was no disagreement between the appellant and the respondent due to age differences and the respondent’s non-mangalik status. According to the respondent, the ill-treatment began only when the appellant was hired by the government.
Regarding desertion, the Court observed that, according to the information presented by the respondent, she was battered and her sister and husband witnessed traces of beating on her. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the appellant attempted to entice the respondent back into cohabitation. As a result, the family court correctly valued the evidence on record, and the appellant failed to show cruelty and desertion on the side of the respondent-wife.
In light of the foregoing, the appeal against the ruling of the family court was dismissed.
JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY REETI SHETTY