ASHWINKUMAR BHAGWANLAL MEHTA Vs. JAGRUTI ASHVINKUMAR MEHTA FOR HERSELF AND ALSO AS GUARDIAN OF VISHAL AND CHINTAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent No. 1 wife herself admitted in her evidence that monthly income of the husband was Rs. 175/-. The husband had deposed that he was not earning anything and that he was unemployed. It transpired in evidence that till May 1981 the petitioner-husband was getting Rs.642 as his salary. In May 1981 he resigned. Reasons for resigning his job were not given by him. The question was what was the evidentiary value of the admission of the respondent No.1 wife in her deposition that monthly income of her husband was Rs. 175/-. Held that it was not in the interest of substantial justice to take the wife's words as irrefutably binding on her.

(2.) On behalf of the husband reliance was placed on the decison of Dhirajlal Maganlal Desai v. Kamuben 12 GLR 193.

(3.) In the aforesaid reported ruling, it is specifically stated that the doctrine can be invoked where a normally healthy young man capable of hard work avoids doing anything and pleads lack of income for inability to provide maintenance. It appears that the petitioner-husband does not make a clean breast of his income and that he is out to defeat the respondent No.1's claim. It is true that she herself has stated that his monthly income is Rs. 175/-, but considering all the circumstances on the record of the case, it does not serve the ends of justice to take her by her words and to reach the conclusion that the petitioner-husband does not have sufficient means to maintain her when he maintains his daughter by the previous wife and affords the company of an illicit connection. It is not in the interest of substantial justice to take the respondent No.1's words as irrefutably binding on her.