( 1 ) THIS is a defendant's appeal arising out of a suit for declaration and consequential relief. The Court Below has while decreeing the suit held that the plaintiff-respondent No. 1 in this appeal is the legally wedded wife of the defendant-appellant and their daughter Ms. Mrinalini Reddy their only legal heir. The Court has also declared the marriage between the appellant and defendant-respondent No. 2 to be a nyllity and restrained the said respondent from claiming herself to be the wife of the appellant.

( 2 ) THE appellant and plaintiff-respondent No. 1 are Christians by faith. They were married on 21st of January 1992 at Madras as per Roman Catholic rites. After the marriage they lived for sometime in Koramangala from where they later shifted to a house in Coxtown, Bangalore. In May 1992, the plaintiff-wife is alleged to have discovered an extra marital affair between her husband and respondent No. 2 Smt. Nagina. The plaintiff's case is that when confronted the appellant could not explain the illicit liaison and walked out of the house leaving the plaintiff in a helpless state and forcing her to shift residence with her parents in Madras. At Madras she gave birth to a female child on 16th of October 1992 named Mrinalini Reddy. Efforts made by the plaintiff-wife to go back to the appellant-husband and to rehabilitate her relationship with him proved futile because the husband declined to accept her back and claimed to have converted to Islam. The plaintiff's further case is that the appellant and respondent No. 2 Smt. Nagina are living as husband and wife and that respondent No. 2 is openly claiming herself to be the wife of the defendant-appellant herein. Left with no alternative to establish her status as the legally wedded wife of the appellant, O. S. No. 130/95 was filed for a declaration to the effect that the marriage between the plaintiff respondent No. 1 and defendant-appellant was subsisting and that the second defendant-respondent No. 2 in this appeal was not entitled to claim herself to be the wife of the appellant.

( 3 ) IN the written statement filed by the husband-appellant herein, it was inter alia alleged that after about three months of their marriage, the plaintiff-wife started behaving strangely and picking up fights with the defendant and his family members. Allegations suggesting an extra marital relationship between the husband and the defendant No. 2 were denied. It was also alleged that during their stay at Coxtown, the defendant-husband happened to notice the plaintiff's name as Mrs. Kamini Selvam in the passport issued to her meaning thereby that she was earlier married. The earlier marriage of the respondent having come to light the plaintiff started harrasing the appellant husband, which he could escape only by leaving the house. It was alleged that by the time the defendant did so, the plaintiff was pregnant and that the defendant had been totally deceived and misled to get married to a woman who had been married earlier.

( 4 ) THE written statement went on to state that the plaintiff-wife had obtained a decree of divorce from her earlier husband Sri Robert Selvam, but since the said decree was not granted by a competent Court, the marriage between the plaintiff and the said Sri Robert Selvam continued to be valid and subsisting. It was also alleged that since the marriage between the parties was by deceit and fraud allegedly played upon the husband, the same was a nullity in the eye of law. The allegation that the defendant had changed his faith from Christianity-to Islam was also denied. The change of the name was according to the defendant due to some superstitious belief.

( 5 ) IN the replication filed by the wife, the fact that she was earlier married to Sri Robert Selvam was not disputed. It was asserted that at the time of dissolution of the marriage between the plaintiff-wife and Sri Robert Selvam, both of them were residing in USA. The decree of dissolution granted by the American C

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