BAITAHKA Vs. ALIHUSSAINFIDAALLICHOTHIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this appeal, by special leave, we are called upon to interpret a benign provision enacted to ameliorate the economic condition of neglected wives and discarded divorcees, namely, S. 125, Cr. P. C. Welfare laws must be so read as to be effective delivery systems of the salutary objects sought to be served by the Legislature and when the beneficiaries are the weaker sections, like destitute women, the spirit of Art. 15 (3) of the Constitution must belight the meaning of the Section. The Constitution is a pervasive omnipresence brooding over the meaning and transforming the values of every measure. So, S. 125 and sister clauses must receive a compassionate expansion of sense that the words used permit.

(2.) The respondent (husband) married the appellant (wife) as a second wife, way back in 1956, and a few years later had a son by her. The initial warmth vanished and the jealousies of a triangular situation erupted, marring mutual affection. The respondent divorced the appellant around July 1962. A suit relating to a flat in which the husband had housed the wife resulted in a consent decree which also settled the marital disputes. For instance, it recited that the respondent had transferred the suit premises, namely, a flat in Bombay, to the appellant and also the shares of the Co-operative Housing Society which built the flat concerned. There was a reference to mehar money (Rs. 5,000/- and 'iddat' money, Rs. 180) which was also stated to have been adjusted by the compromise terms. There was a clause in the compromise :

(3.) For some time there was flickering improvement in the relations between the quondam husband and the quondam wife and they lived together. Thereafter, again they separated, became estranged. The appellant, finding herself in financial straits and unable to maintain herself, moved the Magistrate under S. 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, for a monthly allowance for the maintenance of herself and her child. She proceeded on the footing that she was still a wife while the respondent rejected this status and asserted that she was a divorcee and therefore ineligible for maintenance. The Magistrate, who tried the petition for maintenance, held that the appellant was a subsisting wife and awarded monthly maintenance of Rs. 300/- for the son and Rs. 400/- for the mother for their subsistence, taking due note of the fact that the cost of living in Bombay, where the parties lived, was high, and that the respondent had provided residential accommodation to the appellant.