Father's appeal against Family Court dismissal of divorce petition. HC held husband failed to produce electronic evidence of alleged illicit messages, drawing adverse inference while accepting wife's dowry torture allegations; appeal dismissed.
Appeal dismissed, judgment and decree of Family Court affirmed, parties to bear own costs.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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NAFR
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR
FAM No. 90 of 2019
---- Appellant
Versus
---- Respondent
| For Appellant | : Shri Vijay K. Deshmukh, Advocate |
|---|---|
| For Respondent | : Shri Suresh Pandey, Advocate |
Hon'ble Shri Justice Goutam Bhaduri
Hon'ble Shri Justice Radhakishan Agrawal
Judgment on Board
Per Goutam Bhaduri, J.
03/11/2022
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19.06.2018 passed in civil suit No.85A/2014 by the Judge, Family Court, Ambikapur (CG), whereby the application preferred by the husband under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 was dismissed. The present appeal is by the husband.
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persons outside the marriage. It is also stated that because of such reason, the social meeting was convened and when the indecent transcripts were confronted to wife it was initially denied and the wife leveled allegations of conspiracy over the husband, however, subsequently, when her voice was confronted, she could not answer; went away with her mother; and extended threat that she would inculpate in-laws in a false case of dowry. The petition for divorce was filed by the husband on the ground that before one year of the filing of the petition she was residing separately.
• The respondent/wife filed her written-statement and denied all the allegations. It was stated that because of the behaviour of the husband that he used to doubt her fidelity and he also named one lady namely Neelam Dubey with whom he was having relation and husband told her that the wife cannot replace her. She further stated that the husband was not happy with the cash amount, which was received during the marriage along with goods and because of that she was subjected to torture. When she went to a place Pali for Rakshabandhan, the husband did not come to bring her back. According to the wife, the husband entrusted one Dharmendra to send indecent SMS
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to the wife and for which the report was made and the investigation was carried out. The husband confessed the fact and revealed that he has entrusted Dharmendra to send such message to the wife. She stated that she was ready and willing to join the company of the husband despite the ill behaviour meted out to her and prayed for dismissal of the divorce petition.
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decree of learned Court below is required to be set aside.
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like nature was actually received. The husband since has leveled the allegation on the basis of mobile message conversation, in order to appreciate those facts, unless such evidence are placed before the Court, it cannot be presumed that such kind of messages were ever received by the wife.
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marriage was the subject matter of the meeting is not been proved.
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Those allegations have been denied by the wife and except the oral statement nothing is on record to substantiate the same that certain conversation in between the mobile numbers had ever taken place. Therefore, if the appellant/husband was sanguine of the facts of existance of such evidence and he was in hold of those electronic evidence when are not produced, which would have been the best evidence for the case qua the pleading, the adverse inference is required to be drawn against husband. Consequently, it can be inferred that bald allegations though have been made but not proved instead the allegation that the wife was forced to stay at her parental home for demand of dowry for non-fulfilling of such demand is established. Under these circumstances, the judgment and decree of the Court below appears to be justified as such it do not call for any interference.
13.A decree be drawn accordingly.
SD/- SD/-
(Goutam Bhaduri) (Radhakishan Agrawal) JUDGE JUDGE
Ashu
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the allegations of extra-marital relations and misconduct by the wife are supported by sufficient evidence to set aside the divorce dismissal.
Whether the High Court should interfere with the Family Court's dismissal of the Section 13(1)(ia/ib) divorce petition.
What adverse inference can be drawn from the non-production of electronic evidence (CD/Chip) alleged to contain indecent messages.
Vikas Patel
Rakhi Patel
Goutam Bhaduri
Radhakishan Agrawal
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
