AUGUSTINE GROGE Vs. LIZAMMA THOMAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When can a wife be said to "refuse" to live with her husband or to disentitle her to receive maintenance under Section 125, Cr.P.C Is the traditional and conventional reluctance of a Court to grant the entire claim of a litigant justified

(2.) The rival contestants in a claim for maintenance under Section 125, Cr.P.C. have come before this Court to assail an order passed. In that order, the learned Judge of the Family Court directed the respondent/husband (parties are referred in the manner in which they are arrayed in the M.C.) to pay maintenance at the rate of Rs. 600 per mensem to the claimant., admittedly his wife.

(3.) Marriage is admitted. Separate residence is also admitted. There is no contention that the wife is not a person unable to maintain herself. The wife had claimed an amount of Rs. 1,000 per mensem as maintenance. Along with the claim for maintenance, there were anterior proceedings between the parties pending before the Family Court. The husband had claimed decree for declaration of nullity of marriage and alternatively prayed for a decree for dissolution of marriage. The wife, in turn, had made a claim for return of ornaments, cash etc. which allegedly belong to her; but were in the possession of the husband. Those two petitions were taken up and disposed of together by a separate order. In the maintenance claim, there was only the evidence of the claimant/wife as PW1 and the respondent/husband as CPW1. Ext. A1 certificate of marriage between them was produced and marked.