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PETITIONER: EARNEST JOHN WHITE
Vs.
RESPONDENT: MRS. KATHLEEN OLIVE WHITE AND OTHERS
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 10/03/1958
BENCH: KAPUR, J.L. BENCH: KAPUR, J.L. BHAGWATI, NATWARLAL H. GAJENDRAGADKAR, P.B.
CITATION: 1958 AIR 441 1958 SCR 1410
ACT: Divorce-Adultery-Standard of Proof-Principle-Direct evidence if imperative-Finding of fact when can be interfered with- Divorce Act (IV of 1869), ss. 14 and 7.
HEADNOTE: The appellant sued his wife for dissolution of marriage on the ground of her adultery. On the evidence the trial court found that it was not possible to hold that adultery had been committed, though it found that one of the letters contained "a large substratum of truth". The High Court in appeal concurred with the decision. On appeal to the Supreme Court it was contended for the appellant that the finding of the courts below was vitiated because certain pieces of evidence had been misread, and some others ignored. As a matter of legitimate and proper inference the Court should not have arrived at any other conclusion, but that the wife was guilty of adultery with respondent NO. 2. The evidence showed that the wife went to Patna and stayed in a hotel with respondent NO. 2 under an assumed name, that they occupied the same room in the hotel, that the conduct of the respondent indicated a guilty inclination, and that so far as the wife was c...