The court emphasized the importance of evidence within pleadings and invoked the bar of Order 2 Rule 2 of CPC to non-suit the appellant from seeking divorce on the ground of adultery.

1. Vide impugned judgment of 15th December, 1997 appellant's petition for divorce on the ground of cruelty and adultery stands dismissed while holding that appellant in the earlier petition for divorce i.e. HMA case No.165/1996 instituted on 2nd April, 1996 had not taken the ground of adultery and so, the ground of adultery is not available to appellant. Regarding appellant not substantiating the allegation of cruelty, the findings returned in the impugned judgment are as under: -

“The petitioner has sought the dissolution of marriage between himself and the respondent no.1 on the ground of cruelty and has referred to certain incidents of cruelty committed by the respondent no.1 against him. Both the parties have tried to make improvements in their respective cases by introducing new facts, during the course of their examination-in-chief and material contradictions appear in the pleadings and evidence of both the parties. In the earlier petition the date of notice was mentioned by the petitioner as 21/11/95 but in the present case the date of said notice is alleged to be as 26/11/95 while in the cross-examination of the petitioner he has alleged the date of the said notice to be 26/12/95. The petitioner has introduced the allegations of removal of Rs.15000/-by the respondent no.1 after breaking opening the lock of the trunk of the petitioner, while this allegation was not a part of the earlier divorce petition filed by the petitioner against the respondent no.1. Even the incident of beatings dt. 8/4/96 was not a part of the earlier petition which has been introduced by the petitioner in the present case. On the one hand the petitioner alleges that the respondent no.1 was in the habit of frequently visiting her parental home while on the other hand the petitioner alleges that the respondent no.1 is living with the respondent no.2 in the Moujpur. On the one hand the petitioner alleges that in the year 1991 he was studying and was not interested in having a child and the respondent no.1 became pregnant by not taking precaution while in para 9 of the petition it is alleged that the petitioner was using condom at the time of consummation of marriage but he was surprised when the respondent no.1 told him in Sept., 1991 that she had conceived a child.

The petitioner even admitted in his cross-examination that he does not know about the contents of the petition and the affidavits and that he had signed the same under the impression that whatever he had intimated to his Advocate the same must have been pleaded in the petition. The petitioner even admitted in his cross-examination that the 17 facts as referred in his cross-examination did not form the part of the petition. Moreover, there are material contradictions in the statement of the petitioner as PW1 and his brother as PW4. On the one hand the allegation of removal of Rs.15,000/- by the respondent no.1 from the trunk of the petitioner after breaking opening the lock of the trunk was not a part of the earlier petition and had been introduced in the present petition and on the other hand there is material contradiction in the statement of the petitioner and his brother PW4 in this respect. The petitioner did not refer to the presence of any neighbourer at the time of giving beating to him by the respondent no.1 and her parental relatives while PW4 alleges the presence of the neighbourers Rohtash and Rajkali. Even the said neighbourers and mother of the petitioner have not been produced by the petitioner in support of his allegation of having been beaten by the respondent no.1 and her parental relatives. Moreover, the petitioner did not prefer to lodge any report with the police about the incidents of beating given to him by the respondent no.1 and her parental relatives. This fact also casts doubt about the genuineness of the allegations of cruelty levelled by the petitioner against the respondent no.1. It has been held by our own High Court in case Smt. Ranjana Saxena Vs