( 1 ) THIS First Appeal by the husband under Section 23 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, hereinafter called the Act is directed against the judgment of the Addl. District Judge, Delhi dismissing the appellant/husband s petition under Section 12 of the Act for annulment of the marriage solomnised between the parties on the ground that the respondent/wife was impotent at the time of the marriage and continued to be so until the institution of the petition. The appeal has been filed in the following circumstances.

( 2 ) THE appellant and the respondent were married on Jaunary 31,1971 according to Hindu rites, the respondent/wife was about 16 years of age at the time of marriage. After the marrige. the parties lived as husband and wife for a total period of little over three months at defferent places, and since, July, 1971 when she left the appellant s home with her father, the respondent has been living with her parents. There is controversy between the parties as to whether the marriage was duly consummated, if the respondent was impotent from the beginning and continued to be so, the reasons for the rupture between the parties, the manner in which the appellant tre