KAN SINGH, J.—This is a husbands appeal directed against the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge, Jodhpur, dated 25-8-69 dismissing the husbands petition under sec. 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, hereafter to be referred as the "Act", against his wife the respondent here.

2 Devi Singh was married to Smt. Sushila Devi on 17-4-61 at Jodhpur in accordance with the Hindu rites. After their marriage the couple lived together upto 13-4-63. Thereafter, according to the husband. Smt Sushila Devi withdrew herself from the society of the husband petitioner without any reasonable excuse and since then she has been living apart from him. According to the husband, although he had made repeated requests to his wife to return to his house, she had evinced no interest in coming back to the husbands house to live with him. On the contrary, he proceeded to say, that the wife disliked the company of her husband and would never live with him. Prior to the petition under sec. 10(l)(a) of the Act filed on 12-8-68, the husband had filed an application under sec 9 of the Act for restitution of conjugal rights, but that application came to be dismissed by the learned District Judge, Jodhpur on 11-11-65 on the ground that there was positive evidence for showing that the husband had been cruel towards the wife and she and her child were neglected by the husband who did not even provide food for them. The husband came up in appeal to this Court against the judgment of the learned District Judge in the case for restitution of conjugal rights, but his appeal was dismissed in default on 6-3-68. It is thereafter that the present petition under sec. 10(l) (a) of the Act was made by the husband.

3. The present petition was based on the ground of desertion; the husbands case in a nut-shell being that the wife was living apart from him and had no intention to return to him and for it there was no reasonable excuse for her.

4. The wife contested the petition. She gave the history of their relationship since the night of marriage. She averred that the husband had been violent to her. Even on the first night of their meeting at the husbands house the petitioner, husband had levelled charges of theft and unchastity against the wife. She further averred that her life had become miserable and she fell sick. The husband did not provide her any treatment and sent her to her parents home saying to her falsely that she was a patient of tuberculosis. In December, 1961 the parties again started living together in a rented house, but according to the wife, the husband did not meet the household expenses, consequently it became difficult for the wife to pull on with the husband and accordingly she went to her parental home along with the husband, There she gave birth to a male child. In February, 1963, the wife purchased a house in Bagar mohalla of Jodhpur and shifted there along with the husband. The couple lived there for sometime, but on 12-4-68 the husband is alleged to have left the wife alone with her ailing child: thereafter he never returned despite her repeated efforts and requests to resume conjugal life. The wifes father, according to her, approached the relatives of the petitioner on whose advice the wife was sent to her father-in-laws house. There she lived for about two or three days, but the husband did not even care to speak to her. The wifes father then requested the petitioners uncle one Dr. Ranbir Singh to persuade the petitioner-husband to keep the wife in his house. Even Dr. Ranbir Singh kept the wife and the husband for one night at his own house, but this did not bring the couple together. In the circumstances Dr. Ranbir Singh brought the wife back to her father and thereafter the husband is alleged to have removed all the household goods from the house rented by the wife and even gave her a beating. Thus, according to the wife, the shoe was on the other leg namely, it was the husband who was in desertion and not the wife. She further pl

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