BASANT, J.

1. Can a recalcitrant litigant be permitted to take advantage of the alleged inadequacy in the service of notice when it is clear as day light that he had full knowledge of the proceedings and opportunity to participate in the same? This question arises for consideration in this appeal.

2. This appeal is preferred by the appellant through his power of attorney holder, his father, against dismissal of applications to condone the delay of 330 days and to set aside an exparte order of divorce passed against him under Section 2 of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939.

3. To the skeletal facts first. The marriage took place on 18.07.2004. The wife claimed divorce under Section 2 of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act in a petition filed in 2007 - as O.P.No.225 of 2007. The appellant/husband was employed abroad. Notice could not be personally served on him. Attempt was made to effect service by affixture at the place of permanent residence of the appellant in India. The notice was affixed. To that affixture, the father of the appellant, his present power of attorney holder, was a witness. The appellant did not appear even thereafter. It was, in these circumstances, that on 15.01.2008, an exparte decree was passed against the appellant dissolving the marriage. Long later, after the lapse of about a year, the appellant filed an application to set aside the exparte order. That application was preferred by him through his father/power of attorney holder. Along with that application, he filed another application to condone the delay of 330 days in filing such application.

4. The applications were opposed. The father of the appellant examined himself as PW1. Ext.A1 photocopy of the passport of the appellant was marked. The court below on an anxious consideration of all the relevant circumstances came to the conclusion that the appellant had full knowledge of the proceedings and that he had deliberately not participated in the proceedings. The court took the view that the evidence tendered by PW1 is insufficient to come to a conclusion that the appellant was wrongly set exparte. The long delay of 330 days was not sufficiently explained, opined the court. The court had before it the undisputed circumstance that the appellant had married again during the subsistence of the earlier marriage. The court further took the view that the appellant does not deserve a further opportunity to contest the proceedings. Accordingly the court proceeded to pass the impugned order. It is this common order that is assailed in this appeal.

5. The learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant, at the relevant time, was residing abroad at his place of employment and he was not available in India. This fact was known to the respondent/wife. In spite of knowledge of that fact, she did not take any steps to get service effected at the place of residence of the appellant abroad. Instead, she only took steps to get service effected at his place of residence in India. When personal service could not be effected, she attempted to get service effected by affixture. The fact that service by affixture was effected and the fact that PW1, the father of the appellant, who later on obtained power of attorney from him, was a witness to the affixture is of course not disputed. Still later publication was taken out in an edition of the Kerala Kaumudi news paper.

6. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, notice ought to have been taken to the place of residence of the appellant abroad. According to him, effecting service at the place of permanent residence of the appellant in India is incorrect, improper and insufficient. Service by affixture, to which PW1 was a party, cannot, in these circumstances, cure the defect/inadequacy in service. The mere fact that the father of the appellant had knowledge of service of notice by affixture at a time when he was not the power of attorney holder of the appellant cannot, under