Forgiveness of the marital offence imposes a duty on the offending spouse not to commit it again, and adultery can be inferred from evidence of association, illicit affection, or undue familiarity.

1. This is a reference under S.17 of the Indian Divorce Act for confirmation of the decree for the dissolution of a marriage. The petitioner, while employed as a lieutenant in the army, married the first respondent at Poona on the 11th July, 1949. The latter lived for a time with the petitioner, but on occasions, especially when the petitioner was posted in what are called non-family stations, that is where no accommodation for families are provided she used to go to her mother's house at Chombala in Badagara. In that very house, the co-respondent, who is said to be a friend of the family and was no relation, was also living. According to the petitioner, the first respondent was in illicit intimacy with the co-respondent and a child was born to her on the 25th March, 1954, in adulterous relationship with him. Such relationship continued, whenever and so long as the first respondent lived at Chombala, until the co-respondent left the house by the year 1958. On these averments the petition was presented under S.10 of the Indian Divorce Act for the dissolution of the petitioner's marriage, on the ground that the first respondent has been guilty of adultery. The two respondents denied the charge. The District Judge found the case of adultery to be proved, repelled an argument of condonation of adultery and gave a decree as prayed for.'

2. It was common ground, that the co-respondent, a bachelor aged about 38, was living in the house at Chombala from June 1950 till the year 1958, the other inmates of the house being the first respondent's mother, and the first respondent's brother who had been undergoing treatment at a mental hospital and had been discharged but was still not of sound mental condition. The reason for the co-respondent's residence at Chombala house does not appear to be quite convincing. He had his house not far away, but it is said, that he was all alone there after his sisters had been married and that therefore as a friend of the first respondent's family he took up residence with the first respondent's mother who was practically alone. It was to this house at Chombala and not to the petitioner's family house at Trichur, that the first respondent came whenever the petitioner was transferred to non-family stations. We have it in the evidence, that the bed-rooms in that house occupied by the two respondents during their stay, were adjacent rooms with an apology for a door for communication which had no shutters. After one of those periods of separation, the first respondent joined the petitioner at Kirkee on the 20th August, 1953, a date averred in the petition and sworn to by the petitioner. The averment as to the date was not denied by the first respondent in the counter. At the trial, as rw.1 she made an attempt to make out that she returned early in August, 1953, in the first week of that month or so, an attempt which did not succeed. She had also a story to tell that in December, 1953, when she was living with the petitioner, a gynaecologist examined her and pronounced in the hearing of the petitioner that she was then in the 5th month of pregnancy; but no attempt was made to prove this. Quite against the petitioner's wishes according to him, she insisted on leaving for Chombala and in February 1954 came to Chombala for her confinement. Then she has another story to build, of premature delivery. She said that she was advised by sister Freeda, a midwife, that she had to be delivered of the child immediately to save her life and that accordingly she resorted to some treatment for inducing labour pains which failing, pw. 5 Dr. Bava Abraham attended on her on the 3rd day and the child was born. As seen from Ext. A. 3, a letter which pw. 5 wrote to the petitioner some time later in answer to his enquiry, and as sworn to by her, it was a forceps case "with two or three stitches" and "the baby looked full-term". It appeared to be a clear case and pw. 5 said that from her experience, she could say even by a