1. This case reveals the story of distrust and acrimony between a well-to-do couple. They fell out with each other and the husband took another girl as his second wife without divorcing the first one, seeking legal justification under the personal law which governs them. But the first wife did not remain silent, as she launched the prosecution against the husband for criminal breach of trust of the cash and gold entrusted to him. The husband denied the allegations generally, but owned that there was entrustment of part of the claim and contended that he had accounted it to the wife. The trial court accepted his defence and acquitted him. Untired by the tribulations in prosecuting a long drawn out legal battle, and undeterred by the acquittal, the first wife has come to the High Court with this appeal for which she had obtained special leave.

2. At the time of their marriage in 1975, the accused (husband) was a House Surgeon at Alleppey and the appellant was a girl around sixteen who was the youngest daughter in an affluent family in north Malabar. Friends and relatives of the bride presented her with fabulous marriage gifts which included gold coins as well as gold ornam