I.S. Tiwana, J. - (1.) The appellant-wife assails the decree of the lower Court passed under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (for short the Act). The respondent-husband who had filed the petitioner on the twin ground of cruelty and desertion has succeeded on the basis of the first one. For recording this conclusion, the trial Court has primarily depended upon the allegations levelled by the appellant in her reply to the petitioner under section 13 of the Act. This is indicated by the following observations in the judgment under appeal:- "In her very reply to this petition, the wife has accused her husband to he leading a life of drunkenness and debauchery. She has further accused him possessing an uncertain temperament, ever prone to fly into fits of rage without rhyme or reason not to speak of being lost to all sense of decorum and in the habit of using extremely filthy language towards her. She has, thus, in her pleadings repeated and reiterated in substance the very accusation which her husband and his witnesses have attributed to her and on the basis of which the husband has urged divorce claiming that these amounted to cruelty. Needless to say, there is not a shred of evidence from her side to substantiate he r wild and sweeping accusations against her husband." Otherwise also it is manifestly clear that for granting the relief to the respondent-husband, the lower Court has solely depended on the assertions made by the appellant in her reply to the petition. It deserves to tie highlighted here that during her cross-examination when the contents of the reply containing the above noted allegations against the appellant were put to her, she denied the same in no uncertain terms. This approach and conclusion of the trial Court cannot he sustained in view of the recent Division Bench judgment of this Court in Paras Ram Vs. Kamlesh, AIR 1982 Punjab and Haryana 60 wherein it has been held as follows : "It is a settled legal position that a false allegation of adultery against a - spouse amounts to cruelty in the eye of law. However, it would be a far cry to infer therefrom that an allegation of adultery, whether proved or not, would by itself he the mathematical equivalent of legal cruelty. It is not, and cannot possibly be the law, that a factually true allegation of adultery whether made otherwise or in defence in a written statement would amount to cruelty. In this field the truth or otherwise of such allegation is the crux of the matter. To highlight, it is blatantly false allegation of adultery which would amount to legal cruelty, and not possibly a true allegation of that nature which cannot give any cause of action o the offending spouse. Once this is for, any such allegation of adultery must be put to trial and it is only when its falsity or otherwise is determined that any legal consequence can flow therefrom. It is manifest that in order to succeed on this ground the petitioner must established the falsity of such an allegation. The burden of proof, however, being a negative burden would in the initial stage be a light one. It would, therefore, become necessary that the petitioner in such a situation would have to amend the petition and plead the false allegation of adultery amounting to cruelty as a specific ground for matrimonial relief. It is only when this has been made a ground of attack that that petitioner can possibly take advantage of such an allegation, if proved false." In order to sustain the judgment under appeal, the learned counsel for the respondent primarily relied on a Single Bench judgment of this Court reported as Smt. Krishna Rani Vs. Chuni Lal Gulati, AIR 1981 Punjab and Haryana 191 , wherein it has been held as follows : "That the imputation of adulterous conduct constitutes cruelty of a type envisaged in section 13 of the Act, is by now judicially well recognised. Reliance has been placed on Amrik Singh P.C.S. Vs. Smt. Surjit Kaur, 1975 Cur. LJ 360 . Smt. Gayatri Devi Jain Vs. Dip Chand. 1977 Hindu LR 425 and Jiwan Lata Vs. Krishan Kumar, 1979 Hindu LR 599 ." The decision in Jiwan Lata's case (supra) (1979 Hindu Law Reporter 599) has specifically been overruled by the Division Bench in Paras Ram's case (supra).
(2.) The learned counsel for the respondent, however, contends that though the lower Court has not discussed and considered the order evidence on record yet the said evidence led by him perfectly justifies the conclusion which has been recorded by the lower Court. The learned counsel for the appellant forcefully assails this stand of the respondent. Anyhow the fact remains that the lower court has not adverted to the entire evidence on record and has primarily depended on the contents of the reply filed by the appellant to grant relief to the respondent. In the circumstances of the case. I set aside the order under appeal and send the case hack to the lower court for a decision afresh on merits in accordance with law. The parties, through their counsel are directed to appear in the lover court on 14th Feb., 1983. Order accordingly.;