Mental cruelty in a divorce case must be established by positive evidence, and a single incident of attempted suicide, which was not established, did not constitute mental cruelty.

A.K. Mathur, C.J.

1. This is a Letters Patent Appeal directed against judgment dated 3.12.1990 passed by learned Single Judge in First Appeal No. 16 of 1990 whereby the learned Judge has reversed the decree of divorce granted in favour of the appellant/husband by the learned Trial Court.

2. Brief facts giving rise to this appeal are that respondent wife is employed as Assistant Professor in Government Girls Degree College at Jabalpur and the appellant husband is an M.B.B.S. doctor practising as an Eye-Specialist at Jabalpur. The marriage took place on 6.12.1976 when the respondent wife was in service in Govt. School at Balaghat. A petition for divorce was filed by the husband on allegations that respondent wife did not at all discharge any marital obligations and has not returned to the husband since September, 1977. It was stated that after the marriage she lived with her husband at his house for a very brief period. In September, 1977, she created a scene by jumping in the mid-night. It was alleged that since the day the appellant husband married the respondent wife, she had been threatening the appellant that she would commit suicide. Therefore, the petition for divorce was brought by the appellant husband on grounds of desertion and cruelty. The petition was opposed by the wife stating that she never created any scene by jumping in the mid-night and there were no attempts on her part to commit suicide. She further stated in reply that in September, 1977, she had informed her husband from Balaghat that she was returning to Jabalpur and she should be received at the Railway-Station but the husband never turned up at the Railway Station, although he had received the intimation. According to the wife, a telegram was also sent to the husband about her returning from Balaghat to Jabalpur but the husband sent a letter through his aunt Smt. Kakkad to Shriram, the cousin of the wife informing that the appellant husband was highly displeased and in anger and it would not be possible for him to go to Railway Station to receive the wife and that the parents of the wife should make arrangements to receive her. It is alleged by the wife that she made repeated attempts herself and through her relations and friends to approach the husband so as to permit her to discharge her marital obligations as a wife in the house of the husband, but such approaches and attempts were strongly repelled by the husband and the members of his family. It was alleged that in the year 1977 on the festival of Karwa Chouth, parents of the wife went to the house of the husband with gifts and presents as a mark of pious relationship between husband and wife, but the husband and his family members refused to accept the same. The wife also stated that thereafter she had been writing letters to the husband from Balaghat and even expressed her wish to leave the service and live with the husband to lead a happy married life but the husband never responded. It was also alleged that during Dushehra-Diwali holidays of the year 1979, the wife tried to approach the husband and met him in the clinic of Dr. R.K. Mishra, Eye Specialist where her husband was working at that time, but the husband flatly refused to talk to her or to meet her and asked her to immediately leave. Thereafter she returned back in the car of Dr. Mishra whose wife escorted her back to her parents' house in Wright Town, Jabalpur. It was also alleged by the wife that her father died on 21.3.1980 and the death news was sent to her husband but he did not join the funeral or come for condolence. It was also pointed out by the wife that she tried to somehow reconcile through good offices of her neighbour, friends and relations but without any result. In these circumstances, the wife denied that there was any voluntary desertion on her part or any act of cruelty so as to pass a decree of divorce against her.

3. In support of his case, the husband examined himself as PW1 and alleged about desertion by his