E V KUNHIMARIAM Vs. OORAMVEETTIL MAMMU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case may well serve as a study in the continuing suffering of Indian womanhood. The legal battle for getting a paltry amount of less than Rs. 2,000 by way of Mahar and past maintenance, spanned a period of nearly a decade spread over three courts including the High Court.

(2.) Mammu, was a man of means, owning landed properties, and doing business in the busy bazaar of Nadapuram. He was married and with six children. His wife had gone to her parents house, presumably for the delivery of the 7th child. He felt like marrying again; he was only around 45; and his personal law permitted it. That was how he married Kunhimariyam, a girl about half his age, on 9th April 1972. The married life,-nay, even the honey moon was, however, short-lived. By the end of July, the first wife came back. The second wife was packed off to her parents' house. She was then big with a child; and in due time delivered Suhara, the 2nd plaintiff in the case.

(3.) It was thereafter a case of continued neglect and abject abandonment as far as the plaintiffs were concerned. Mammu was so busy that he did not have time even to see his child, much less to care for its needs. The utility of the second wife was over as far as he was concerned.