Gangele, J--1. Appellant has filed this appeal against the order dated 2.12.2006 passed by the District Judge, Panna in C.S. No. 29-A/2006. By the aforesaid order, the trial Court allowed the application filed by the respondent under Order 7 rule 11 and dismissed the suit on the ground that the suit is not maintainable becasue it was filed beyond the period of limitation prescribed under section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

2. The appellant filed a suit for declaring the marriage solemnized between the appellant and respondent as null and void. He pleaded that the marriage between the appellant and the respondent was solemnized on 19.6.2005 as per the Hindu rituals. The appellant came to know that the respondent was pregnant with someone else before the marriage and he filed the suit for divorce on 1.7.2006. Respondent denied the pleadings that she was pregnant with someone else. An application was filed under Order 7 rule 11 on behalf of the respondent questioning the jurisdiction of the Court to entertain the suit because the suit was filed beyond the period of limitation prescribed under section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The trial Court allowed the application and dismissed the suit.

3. It is an admitted fact that the marriage between the appellant and respondent was solemnized on 19.6.2005. The appellant filed the suit on 1.7.2006 beyond the period of one year from the date of solemnization of the marriage.

4. Counsel for the appellant has submitted that the suit filed by the appellant was within the period of limitation because it was filed within a period of one year from the date of knowledge of pregnancy of the appellant.

5. Section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 prescribes voidable marriages. section 12(2)(b) prescribes that the petition shall be entertained unless the Court is satisfied. The relevant section reads as under :

(b) on the ground specified in clause (d) of sub-section (1) shall be entertained unless the Court is satisfied -

(i) that the petitioner was at the time of the marriage ignorant of the facts alleged;

(ii) that proceedings have been instituted in the case of a marriage solemnised before the commencement of this Act within one year of such commencement and in the case of marriages solemnised after such commencement within one year from the date of the marriage; and

(iii) that marital intercourse with the consent of the petitioner has not taken place since the discovery by the petitioner of the existence of [the said ground].

6. In accordance with section 12(2)(b)(ii), the proceedings must have been instituted within one year from the date of marriage.

7. The question that whether the proceedings can be entertained beyond a period one year when the alleged pregnancy of the respondent was discovered has been considered by the Division Bench of this Court in case of Nandkishore v. Smt. Munni Bai [1979 MPLJ 105]. The Division Bench has held as under :

“Reading of this Sub-section (2) would indicate that a petition for annulment of a marriage shall not be entertained if the conditions laid down in its various Subclauses are not satisfied. It is, therefore, incumbent on a petitioner to plead and for a Court to find that the petitioner has strictly fulfilled the requirements of those sub-clauses. In order to succeed under Clause (d) of section 12(1) of the Act, the petitioner must not only show the existence of pregnancy at the time of marriage, but should also prove that he was ignorant of that fact at the time of marriage, that the proceedings were instituted within a period of one year fixed by the statute and that he did not have marital intercourse with the wife subsequent to the time when he had grounds for reasonably inferring the cause on which he is seeking annulment. In the instant case, the marriage took place on 2.5.1975. The petition was filed on 14.6.1976. The summer vacation that year commenced from 10.5.1975. The Courts did function on 3.5.1975. Obviously the peti