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"19. Such decree may be made on any of the following grounds :-

(1) that the respondent was impotent at the time of the marriage and at the time of the institution of the suits;"

7. It may be observed straightway that it is well settled in law that for the purposes of Ss. 18 and sub-s. (1) of S. 19 of the said Act the impotence alleged may not be general or total. It is not necessary in order to obtain a decree for nullity that it must be established that the party against whom the decree is sought is impotent with all members of the other sex. It is sufficient if it is established in a petition on this ground that the respondent was incapable of performing the sexual act with the petitioner that is that the respondent was at the time of marriage and at the time of the institutionof the petition relatively impotent the petitioner or suffered from impotentia quoad hunc vel hanc (see Latey on Divorce, 15th Edn. P. 226). It is also well settled in law that it is not necessary that the impotence alleged must be in the sense of physical impotence, but it may comprise in invincible repugnance to the sexual act either generally or with the spouse filing the petition and this relative impotence may be caused by factors such as hysteria or resistance or psychological or mental block against the act of sexual intercourse or invincible repugnance. Now, the evidence of the appellant, which has remained uncontroverted, shows that the only occasion on which he was able to make an attempt to have sexual intercourse with the respondent was on the wedding night and on that night he could have sexual intercourse or sexual relation with the respondent only by using force. It is true that the appellant has, later on, stated in answer to a question put by his advocate Mr. Rebello that even on that night the respondent did not permit the appellant to penetrate her as set out earlier. That part of the evidence seems to be more a mere gloss as observed by the learned trial Judge and cannot be accepted, even though there was no cross-examination. However, taking into account the earlier part of the evidence regarding which there is no dispute, the question which arises is :

"Can a woman who submits only on one occasion to sexual intercourse with her husband and that only by the husband using force and on all other occasions resists successfully the attempts of the husband to have sexual relations with her be said to be impotent relatively to him?"

In our opinion, the answer to that question should be in the affirmative particularly in a case like this where the wife has on several other occasion showed complete reluctance to any sexual intercourse with the husband and, in fact consistently rebutted all his advances with contempt. The evidence clearly shows that the respondent had complete aversion to any sexual relationship with the appellant and it was only once that the appellant could have such relationship and that too by use of force.

10. The discussion set out earlier clearly supports the conclusion that in a case like this, a decree should be pronounced in favour of the husband. We may point out that it is well settled law that the husband may obtain a decree on the ground of nullity of marriage where the wife is impotent qua him. It is not necessary to establish that the wife is impotent generally or physically incapable of the act of sexual intercourse. If that is the position, in a case like this where the evidence shows that the wife could submit to sexual intercourse with the husband only when the husband used force, it must be held that the wife was impotent relatively to the husband.