Sundari Raja Singam v Rasaratnam Raja Singam

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choor Singh J
• Judgment Date: 27 February 1976
• Neutral Citation: [1976] SGHC 4
• Docket Number: Divorce Petition No 99 of 1974
• Date: 27 February 1976
• Year: 1976
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: N Vaithinathan (Vaithinathan & Co)
• Citation: [1976] SGHC 4
• Defendant Counsel: JB Jeyaretnam (JB Jeyaretnam & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Grounds for divorce,Allegation of cruelty on husband's part,Family Law,Whether facts sufficient to constitute cruelty,Behaviour

This is a wife`s petition seeking the dissolution of her marriage on the ground of her husband`s cruelty.

The parties were married at the Registry of Marriages at Johor Bahru on 17 March 1968. The husband was then employed as a teacher in Kuala Lumpur and the wife who was also a teacher was employed in Singapore. After the marriage, the wife continued to live with her parents in Kim Keat Road, Singapore and the husband in Kuala Lumpur. At weekends the husband used to drive down to Singapore and spend the weekend with his wife at her parents` house. Sometimes she used to go up to Kuala Lumpur by train and spend the weekend there with her husband. This lasted till the end of December 1969 when the parties set up a matrimonial home in Johor Bahru as the husband had by then obtained a transfer from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru.

The parties lived together in their matrimonial home from December 1969 to 18 January 1970 when the wife left the matrimonial home and went to live with her parents in Singapore.

On 10 June 1970 the petitioner gave birth to a son and although the respondent came and saw his son and his wife at the maternity hospital, there was no reconciliation between the parties for a number of years.

In July 1973 when the son was three years old the petitioner made efforts to effect a reconciliation but without success. In January 1974 the petitioner`s father wrote to the respondent who did not reply. The petitioner`s father then spoke to the respondent on the telephone at his school and the respondent is alleged to have said, `I am not interested. It is already five years.`

The petitioner then commenced these proceedings. After the petition was served on the respondent, he made several telephone calls to the petitioner. He also wrote to her and finally brought his solicitor to see her. The petitioner says that as a result of assurances given to her by the respondent and his solicitor and for the sake of her son, she agreed to live again with the respondent although she says she `was afraid and rather unhappy about reconciliation`.

In May 1974 the parties began living together at 60 Burghley Drive, Singapore, which property the petitioner had purchased during their separation with a government loan. Within a few months of their living together, there were again disagreement and quarrels. The petitioner says this:

... I found that he had not changed. He was very hard to please. He was as usual. I had to be the provider, buy everything for the house. All the furniture was bought with my money. We had frequent quarrels over money matters and over bringing up of the child. All my suggestions were stupid according to him. He was always displeased with me. He said that I was always giving money to my parents; that I did not know how to cook and things like that. He said that I should be totally submissive and should not question him. He said I was not what he wanted me to be. He stopped me from marketing. He was so suspicious of men - even the breadman and the egg man. I was to keep an account of everything I spent while he said he did not have to do that.

He took away my cheque book and car registration book and said that everything belonged to him and that I was not to argue with him. I went to the ROV and obtained a replacement by making a statutory declaration ...

The parties lived together at 60 Burghley Drive for about six months only. They...