BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA, J. - (1.) THIS first appeal is at the instance of an applicant under Sections 24/25 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and is directed against the judgment and decree dated 18th March, 2002 passed by the Additional District Judge, Hooghly, in Matrimonial Suit No.424 of 1995, thereby dismissing the said application by rejecting the prayer of the appellant for declaration that the alleged marriage between the parties was null and void.
(2.) BEING dissatisfied, the appellant has come up with this first appeal. The appellant filed a suit under Sections 24/25 of the Special Marriage Act in the Court of the District Judge, Hooghly which was subsequently transferred to the Court of the Additional District Judge, Hooghly. The case made out by the appellant may be summed up thus : (a) The appellant was aged 27 years and came from a middle class family. The appellant read up to Class-X and was suffering from various ailments since his birth. He was naturally handicapped and depended on others; as a result, his education did not proceed steadily. (b) In the year 1990, his two friends, namely, Tarun Mondal and Jaleswar Murmu, encouraged him to join as a train-hawker for selling rice in the Burdwan area. The appellant was under the impression that he would not get any job due to his infirmity of health and meagre education and, thus, started his career as a train-hawker with a capital of Rs.200/-. Such livelihood was not acceptable to the parents of the appellant who had a reputation in the locality because of the fact that the father of the appellant was in railway service. To avoid family problem, the appellant left the shelter of his parents and began to reside in a rented house at Panduah. (c) In the year 1994, the appellant was introduced to the family of the respondent by his friends, mentioned above. The family of the respondent consisted of her mother, unmarried elder sister and only brother, the respondent being the youngest. (d) The family of the respondent had a sympathetic mind towards the appellant and the appellant considered them as true well-wishers at the beginning. He never felt that beneath such soft behaviour of the family of the respondent, there was a poisonous object and motivation of wrongful gain. (e) If the appellant did not visit the family of the respondent for 10 days or for a week, he was inevitably summoned through his friends. Thus, on good faith, the appellant could not avoid the visit of the house of the respondent. (f) The brother of the respondent, namely, Subir Chakraborty, is a man of desperate nature, a habitual drunk and a man of very bad reputation in locality. The elder sister of the respondent is a strongly built lady having the habit of using blasphemous words every now and then even on a trifling matters. The mother of the respondent posed to the appellant as if she was the only well-wisher of the appellant in the world. Thus, the appellant was under an atmosphere of affection, fear and strain which he could not overcome. (g) The respondent and her family members pressed the appellant hard to make an amicable compromise with his parents but the appellant used to turn down such advice as he thought that unless he had picked up a good business he would not return to his parents. Initially, the appellant thought that the attempt of the respondents family to settle dispute with his parents was an innocent endeavour but later, he understood that such attempt was a motivated one for wrongful gain and they wanted to grab the money and property of the parents of the appellant. (h) Suddenly, on 23rd August, 1995, the mother of the respondent wanted the appellant to accompany her to Chinsurah for medical treatment. The appellant on good faith and innocently agreed to accompany her to Chinsurah and consequently, the mother of the respondent told him to meet her at Chinsurah bus stand. When the appellant arrived there, some unknown persons and her eldest sister began to threaten him to sign on some papers failing which he would be brutally assaulted and taken to the police custody. The appellant was not allowed to see the papers which he was going to sign nor was the contents of those letters explained by any of the persons. After putting of such signatures, he was threatened not to disclose the incident to anybody in future and was asked to get out of the native place at Panduah as soon as it was possible. The mother of the respondent did not attend the hospital on that date and on return to Panduah, the appellant was forced to take the respondent with him as his wife in the rented house where the appellant used to live. (i) On the following day, some unknown persons along with the sister and mother of the respondent forced the appellant to get entrance in the house of the parents of the appellant and induced him to demand a share of the house and share of income of the father as a member of the family. On refusal, the appellant was badly assaulted. (j) The papers signed on 23rd August, 1995 were not the outcome of freewill of the appellant and the respondent and those were obtained by force, fraud and misrepresentation. No notice was served by the appellant proposing any marriage and the alleged marriage was never consummated and the appellant and the respondent never lived as husband and wife. (k) Taking advantage of so-called marriage, the respondent and her family members began to threat the parents of the appellant as well as the appellant. (l) The appellant never married the respondent nor had any intention to marry her. He is not physically fit to lead a conjugal life. The respondent and her family members designed the situation for some ulterior motive and to grab money and property from the father of the appellant. The appellant managed to get a copy of the so-called Marriage Certificate from the respondent and it appeared that the witness shown in the Marriage Certificate were unknown to the appellant. The purported marriage was a nullity and should be declared invalid. Hence the suit.
(3.) THE suit was contested by the respondent by filing written statement thereby denying the material allegations made in the plaint and the defence of the respondent may be summarised thus : (1) The appellant was a friend of Subir Chakraborty, the elder brother of the respondent, and used to come very often at the residence of the respondents mother at Jaipur Road, Panduah, for sale of rice as in the year 1994 the appellant used to sell rice at different houses of the locality. In course of such business, intimacy grew between the appellant and the respondent and the appellant proposed to the respondent and her mother that he would marry the respondent and the respondent went to the appellants father as per request of the appellant. All the members of the appellants family knew that the appellant would marry the respondent. (2) As per proposal and arrangement made by the appellant, on June 21, 1995, the respondents mother and the elder sister went to Inchhura Kalibari at about 6 :30 p.m. and found the appellant and his sister, Minu Banerjee, were present there. In Inchhura Kalibari, the priest, viz. Sri Sasanka Sekhar Bandopadhyay had conducted the marriage between the appellant and the respondent on that date and all the rites and ceremonies for Hindu marriage had been performed. After the marriage, the appellant took the respondent to his rented room at Kharaji Para, Panduah and the appellant and the respondent lived there as husband and wife for about two months. (3) Thereafter, as per proposal of the appellant, the marriage between the appellant and the respondent was registered on 23rd August, 1995. (4) It was absolutely false that by practising fraud the signature of the appellant was taken on some blank papers. ;