{"id":33870,"date":"1999-12-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-12-08T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/raju-vs-mary-on-9-december-1999"},"modified":"2016-03-22T11:52:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T06:22:31","slug":"raju-vs-mary-on-9-december-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/raju-vs-mary-on-9-december-1999","title":{"rendered":"Raju vs Mary on 9 December, 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"docsource_main\">Kerala High Court<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_title\">Raju vs Mary on 9 December, 1999<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_citations\">Equivalent citations: II (2000) DMC 107<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_author\">Author: A Pasayat<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_bench\">Bench: A Pasayat, K Usha, K Radhakrishnan<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<pre><\/pre>\n<p>JUDGMENT<\/p>\n<p>Arijit Pasayat, C.J.<\/p>\n<p>1. By accepting prayer for decree for dissolution of the marriage, petition filed under Section 10 of the Indian Divorce Act, 1869 (in short &#8216;the Act&#8217;) was disposed of the by learned Judge, Family Court, Ernakulam, granting a decree of divorce. Reference has been made to this Court, as required under &#8211; Section 17 of the Act. Petitioner filed the petition alleging that his wife was leading an immoral life and was living in adultery. It was stated that inspite of best efforts, the name of the alleged adulterer could not be known. The foundation of the claim of adultery was that the respondent refused to have sexual relationship with him. But notwithstanding lack of sexual relationship between them, a child was born to the respondent, and it is sufficient to show that she was living in adultery. Respondent remained ex parte during trial. Learned trial Judge accepted the evidence tendered by the petitioner and held that the respondent was living in adultery.\n<\/p>\n<p>2. When the matter is taken up, none appeared for the respondent. Section 11 of the Act mandates impleadment of the alleged adulterer as co-respondent. However, petitioner can be excused from doing soon one of the following grounds, if allowed by the Court:\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(1) that the respondent is leading the life of a prostitute, and that the petitioner know of no person with whom the adultery has been committed;\n<\/p>\n<p>(2) that the name of the alleged adulterer is unknown to the petitioner, although he has made due efforts to discover it;\n<\/p>\n<p>(3) that the alleged adulterer is dead.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>3. In the case at hand, an application was filed before the learned trial Judge taking the stand that inspite of best efforts the name of the alleged adulterer could not be known, and that due efforts have been made to discover it, but without any result. The object of Section 1.1 being the prohibition of any form of collusive divorce, as a matter of course and mere formality, presence of the co-respondent cannot be dispensed with. The party applying for exemption has to satisfy the Court that all possible efforts have been made to discover the name of the alleged adulterer. Section 11 makes it obligatory on a husband when he petitions for dissolution of marriage on the ground of adultery to make the alleged adulterer a co-respondent unless he is excused from doing so on one of the three grounds mentioned. Until leave is actually obtained the suit cannot proceed. A formal application has to be made before the trial and it has to be supported by evidence that the conditions of Section 11 have been complied with. Justice and fair play demand that the co-respondent in adultery should also be brought to Court to enable him to set a clean bill should he so deserve. Again the inclusion of co-respondent eliminates the chance of collusion or connivance. Though the section apparently lays down a procedural matter, it seems to have great importance in public policy. In the case at hand, learned trial Judge was satisfied that due efforts had been made to discover the name of the alleged adulterer, but without any result.\n<\/p>\n<p>4. Having considered the materials brought on record by the petitioner in support of his stand, we are in agreement with the view expressed by the learned Trial Judge. He also recorded a positive finding that there was no collusion between the parties.\n<\/p>\n<p>The decree is accordingly affirmed and the reference is accepted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kerala High Court Raju vs Mary on 9 December, 1999 Equivalent citations: II (2000) DMC 107 Author: A Pasayat Bench: A Pasayat, K Usha, K Radhakrishnan JUDGMENT Arijit Pasayat, C.J. 1. By accepting prayer for decree for dissolution of the marriage, petition filed under Section 10 of the Indian Divorce Act, 1869 (in short &#8216;the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-court","category-kerala-high-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Raju vs Mary on 9 December, 1999 - Free Judgements of Supreme Court &amp; High Court | Legal India<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/raju-vs-mary-on-9-december-1999\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Raju vs Mary on 9 December, 1999 - Free Judgements of Supreme Court &amp; 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