Kerala High Court: The Division Bench of A.M. Shaffique and A.M.Babu, JJ. dismissed an appeal against the judgment of Family Court directing the husband to pay an amount of Rs 2,25,000 to his wife.
In the present case, the appellant and respondent were a married couple. The grievance of the respondent-wife was that at the time of her marriage she was given 25 sovereigns of gold ornaments which was appropriated by the appellant for his business purpose. But, appellant-husband denied the allegation of having appropriated any of her gold ornaments. The Family Court decreed return of respondent’s ornaments. Aggrieved thereby, the instant appeal was filed.
The appellant submitted that being from a poor family, respondent did not have the capacity to purchase any gold ornaments. Therefore his family had purchased the ornaments from a gold merchant. But the same was returned to merchant later since they did not have enough money to pay for it. However, later he vacillated from his statement and contended that the ornaments were imitation gold. Respondent argued that if the ornaments were imitation gold, then, in that case, the appellant’s contention that the ornaments were returned to the seller, itself was wrong.
The Court noted that though specific details regarding appropriation of gold ornaments had not been given by the respondent-wife; but she had specifically stated in her petition that her gold ornaments were taken and invested for appellant’s business purpose. It was opined that as far as a wife is concerned when her husband demands gold ornaments for his business it may not be possible for her to refuse. Therefore, there was every reason to believe the version of the respondent in view of contradictory contentions taken by appellant. In view thereof, no infirmity was found in the impugned order.[Muraleedharan Pillai v. Ambili Chellappan, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 688, Order dated 22-02-2019]
