UMMINI KUNJURAMAN Vs. MEENAKHSHI SYAMALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . This Criminal Revision Petition arises from an application under S. 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The two respondents in this revision petition, the mother and a child, respondents 1 and 2 respectively applied for a maintenance order against the petitioner in the court below alleging that the latter was cohabiting with the 1st respondent on the promise that he would marry her and that the 2nd respondent was born as a result of such union. The petitioner denied the allegations in the counter statement filed by him as well as in his evidence. The court below held that the petitioner was the father of the child and accordingly ordered that he should pay maintenance at the rate of Rs. 20/- a month. The counter-petitioner before the lower court has, therefore, preferred this criminal revision petition from the order of the court below.

(2.) THE main point urged on behalf of the petitioner is that there is no evidence corroborating the version of the 1st respondent examined as pw. 1 in the lower court and in that case where the paternity of the child of an unmarried woman is denied, it is unsafe to act on the uncorroborated testimony of the woman. In this regard, the question of law involved in the case may be stated first. In Prasad Gaseri v. Mt. Kesari (AIR. 1941 Patna 444) it was held that the burden was upon the woman to establish the paternity of the child and to show that the person from whom she claimed maintenance for the child was the father of the child and that it was prima facie improper to accept without corroboration the mere statement on oath by the mother who asserted that the opposite party was the father of the child.

(3.) THIS question came up for consideration before this court as well in a number of cases, some of which will be referred to hereinafter. One such case was reported in Abdul Rahimankutty v. Aysha Beevi (AIR. 1960 Kerala 101 ). That was a case where this court found that there had been corroboration of the evidence of the petitioner to establish her case of paternity. The corroboration was that she lived as a domestic servant of her child's putative father, that he took interest in getting her married to another man and that no counter evidence was adduced on behalf of the person who claimed to be her husband. Under those circumstances, the court held that there was sufficient corroboration of the evidence. But, in a later case reported in Bhaskaran v. Kunhipennu (AIR. 1960 Kerala 110) it was found that there was no such corroboration though it confirmed that the court should seek corroboration of the petitioner's evidence before granting maintenance. Again, in another decision reported in Raghavan Pillai v. Gourikutty Amma (AIR. 1960 kerala 119) the same position was reiterated that without sufficient corroboration, the evidence of the alleged wife alone is not sufficient to establish her claim for maintenance against the putative father of her child. All these cases lay down the proposition that the evidence of the wife shall be corroborated either by director some circumstantial evidence to establish that during the period when the wife could have conceived of the child, the wife and the alleged father had some access to each other. In the light of the above decisions, I will now examine the evidence in the case.