MADURAI
In a strange case, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court set aside a lower court decree after taking cognisance of the fact that a young woman was tricked into dissolving her own marriage. An affidavit filed on her behalf before the lower court had cited facts which she was not even aware of.
The woman was married to a man from Madurai in 2015. However, after a year of marital relationship, the man, in 2016, sought divorce on the grounds of cruelty. He filed a divorce suit before the sub-court in Tirumangalam. It was during the course of the trial that a counter was filed by the woman.
In the counter, the woman was alleged to have acknowledged the fact that she was in a relationship with another man prior to the marriage. Therefore, she had no objection for the grant of divorce by the court, the counter read. Taking note of the fact, the lower court granted divorce.
However, after realising the deception, the woman filed an interlocutory application seeking urgent relief in the case. Following this, a civil revision petition was filed before the High Court by the man. During the course of the hearing before the High Court, the woman said she was in her in-laws’ house during the relevant time.
Her counsel had sought her signature on some papers and she was not allowed to read the content, she alleged. She said she knew only two languages, English and Telugu, and did not know Tamil. She also added that she had received no summons in the trial case.
Justice G.R. Swaminathan, who heard the case, observed that the counter before the lower court made for a strange reading. The manner in which the counter had been drafted and presented aroused suspicion. “The whole thing appears to be a stage- managed affair. No person in her senses would file such a counter. A young woman has been taken for a ride and tricked into dissolving the marriage,” the court said.
Observing that the lower court had erred in decreeing the matrimonial case, the court set aside the decree and directed the conduct of a fresh hearing, when the woman could file a fresh counter. Subsequently, the civil revision petition was disposed of by the court.