A brief or flying visit for a few days does not constitute "last residing together" as contemplated in Section 19(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, for the purpose of establishing territorial jurisdiction in a matrimonial petition.

( 1 ) SRI U. K. Saxena appears for defendant - revisionist, Sri S. N. Singh appears for plaintiff-respondent. As agreed upon by the parties counsel, this revision is being finally disposed of at the stage of admission itself.

( 2 ) SMT. Sadhna has filed matrimonial Petition No. 273 of 1998 for divorce against her husband sushil Kumar Kulshreshtha before the Civil Judge (Senior Division ). Dehradun. She is at present residing at Dehradun. Her husband Sushil Kumar Kulshrestha is a resident of Aligarh. The marriage between the parties admittedly look-place at Haridwar. In the plaint, there was allegation that husband and wife lived together at Aligarh and that on 3rd June. 1997, she, her brother, her mother-in-law and her husbands brother and sister left her at her brothers house at haridwar and from there, she went to Dehradun and then lived there : that on 9th June, 1997, the husband came at her mothers house and after living there with her for 2-3 days, he beat her and left her and went away and since then she is living at Dehradun with her mother. It is claimed in the matrimonial petition that the Court at Dehradun had jurisdiction from this last residing together.

( 3 ) THE husband Sushil Kumar Kulshrestha contested the petition. inter alia, on the ground that there was no territorial jurisdiction for Dehradun Court. When the trial court was moved by him to decide the Issue of jurisdiction as a preliminary issue, it by the impugned order dated 9. 8. 1999 rejected the prayer with the observation that without the oral evidence, it cannot be decided as to where the husband and wife last resided together so as to confer the jurisdiction on the Court at that place to try this petition. So he took the stand that the issue will be decided at the, trial when the parties lead their evidence at the hearing of the petition.

( 4 ) I have heard the learned counsel for the parties. The contention of the learned counsel for the revisionist is two-fold. The first is that as a fact the husband-revisionist never went to Dehradun on 9th June. 1997 and never stayed there and that the averments have been made in this regard in the petition only to create jurisdiction at Dehradun. The second argument is that even if for a moment the allegations of his going to Dehradun and living there for 2-3 days with the wife Smt. Sadhna at Dehradun, as given in the matrimonial petition, are taken as such. Dehradun Court, still will not have territorial Jurisdiction to entertain the petition for the simple reason that a casual living for a few days would not amount to last residing together as contemplated in section 19 (iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. In support of his contention, he has relied on the authority of Janak Dulari v. Narain Das, AIR 1959 Punj 50, in which it was said :

"where after marriage the parties lived together at Amritsar where the husband was employed for nearly 3-1/2 months, when the wife left her husband and went to Gurdaspur to live with her sisters husband and the husband paid a brief and flying visit for 3 days to Gurdaspur to bring about reconciliation, the husband and wife last resided in Amritsar and not in Gurdaspur within section 19 and the Amritsar Court has Jurisdiction to hear the husbands application under section 9 for restitution of conjugal rights. The stay for three days at Gurdaspur in the house of his wifes sisters husband cannot be considered as "last residence" within the Act. The word reside implies something more than a mere brief or flying visit. "

( 5 ) THE learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent Smt. Sadhana has contested the revision and he claims that the matter of territorial jurisdiction cannot be decided without oral evidence and for that reason, the matter of deciding the territorial Jurisdiction was rightly deferred by the trial court to the final hearing of the petition. He has placed reliance on an authority of this Court in the case of M/s. Ram Babu Singhal Enterprises (P.) Lt