A deliberate false allegation of termination of pregnancy by the husband against the wife in order to overcome the allegation of demand of dowry and assault upon the wife amounts to cruelty and can be a ground for divorce.

BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA, J. :- This appeal is at the instance of a wife in a suit for divorce on the ground of cruelty and is directed against the judgment and decree dated 26th August 2002, passed by the District Judge, Raiganj, District Uttar Dinajpur, in Matrimonial Suit No. 59 of 1999, thereby dismissing the said suit.

2. The appellant before us filed a suit being Matrimonial Suit No. 59 of 1999 in the Court of District Judge, Uttar Dinajpur at Raiganj thereby praying for divorce under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act and the case made out by the appellant may be summed up thus :

(a) The parties are Hindus and married according to the Hindu rites, ceremony and customs on 23rd November; 1995. After the solemnization of their marriage, the parties lived together as husband and wife in the house of the husband in the District of Kishanganj (Bihar), and their marriage was consummated.

(b) At the time of negotiation of the marriage, the respondent and his father and other relatives convinced the guardian of the appellant that the respondent had been serving as an Auditor engaged by Khaitan and Company and posted in Siliguri. They further disclosed that the respondent purchased homestead land in Siliguri in his own name and that Siliguri would be his main place of work. It was further given out that the respondent dealt with Income-tax and Sales-tax matters as an Advocate and had a public telephone booth at Kishanganj owned by him. It was further mentioned that he refused numerous number of offer of Government service and that he used to earn about Rs. 15,000/- to Rs. 16,000/- a month. After the marriage, the appellant and his family members came to know that they were defrauded by the misrepresentation of the respondent.

(c) At the time of negotiation, it was also told by the father of the respondent and by the respondent himself that they had no greed for any dowry and as such, the guardian of the appellant believed in such representation.

(d) Soon after the marriage, the appellant came to know that the respondent was not at all an Auditor and that he had no land in Siliguri or elsewhere nor had any public telephone booth at Kishanganj. At that time, it was detected that the respondent was addicted to drug and was not mentally fit. He often abused the parents and relatives of the appellant over telephone.

(e) The mother-in-law of the appellant was a woman of greedy nature and on several occasions, demanded a huge sum of money from the father of the appellant on various pretexts. The father of the appellant was a poor schoolteacher and was unable to satisfy the demand made by the mother-in-law and the husband, as a result, they jointly tried to kill the appellant by putting kerosene oil and setting fire on her person.

(f) The respondent made a demand of Rs. 2,00,000/- on 20th August, 1999 from the father of the appellant for the purpose of purchasing a piece of land at Kishanganj but the appellant expressed the inability of her father; consequently, the gravity of torture upon the appellant increased. On 24th June, 1999, the respondent brutally assaulted her for which she sustained severe injury on her person and she had been confined in a room. The appellant, however, managed to contact her parents on 3rd July, 1999 over telephone and on the next morning, the father of the appellant, the brother and other three persons rescued her from the matrimonial home.

(g) On 30th August, 1999 at around 12.45 p.m. while the appellant returned from Raiganj University College, the respondent, all on a sudden, attacked and dashed her from behind with the help of a motor-cycle and tried to drag her against will in an indecent manner, as a result, the appellant lodged general diary on 21st August, 1999.

3. The suit was contested by the husband by filing written statement thereby denying the material allegations made in the plaint and the defence may be summed up thus :

(i) The parties were married on November 23, 1998 and the appellant came to