PALANIVEL Vs. B SARASWATHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition was heard in part on 17.3.1993 The only ground urged by the petitioner's Counsel was that the impugned proceedings under Section 125 Cr.P.C. could not have been initiated by B Rajagopal, father and guardian of the first respondent and grandfather of the minor second respondent. I directed the petitioner's Counsel to cite authorities, if any, for this proposition, for which he replied that there was none. Anyhow, he pleaded for a week's time to again search for authorities. Today learned Counsel represented that, to his knowledge, there was no authority for the said proposition. Petitioner is admittedly the husband of the first respondent and father of second respondent, his minor daughter. Petitioner was not successful in M.C. No. 14 of 1990 on the file of Judicial Magistrate No. V. Madurai, wherein proceedings were initiated under Section 125 Cr.P.C. by the father of the first respondent since the first respondent was mentally deranged and was not in a position to prefer a petition by herself on her behalf and on behalf of her minor daughter. Petitioner preferred Crl. R.C. No. 2 of 1992 before the Principal Sessions Judge, Madurai, challenging the correctness of the order of the Enquiring Magistrate directing the petitioner to pay a monthly maintenance of Rs. 300/ - to the first respondent and Rs. 200/ - to the second respondent. First revisional Court concurred with the finding of fact recorded by the Enquiring Magistrate and dismissed the revision.

(2.) PETITIONER , who is barred from preferring a second revision, has chosen to invoke the inherent powers of this Court to have the maintenance award set aside. As a matter of course, inherent powers of this Court cannot be exercised, especially when there is prohibition for a second revision, unless this Court is satisfied in rarest of rare cases that there has been miscarriage of justice. Facts placed before the Enquiring Magistrate disclose that the petitioner and the first respondent entered into matrimony on 16.7.1979 and the second respondent was born out of that marriage in or about 1980. It is the case of the wife that in or about 1982 on transfer to Sivakasi, petitioner insisted on her obtaining 10 sbvereigns of gold jewellery as dowry and further make arrangements to provide him with a job. On that demand, petitioner drove her out of the matrimonial home. Shocked wife thereafter became mentally deranged. Petitioner had wilfully neglected his wife and daughter and did not choose to maintain them thereafter. The case of the petitioner before the Enquiring Magistrate was that the wife had voluntarily left the matrimonial home to stay with her parents and in a panchayat he had already paid a lumpsum of Rs. 10,000/ - in full quite of the maintenance for both the respondents. Both the Courts below have held on the basis of the evidence of the Medical Officer, P.W. 3, coupled with the version of P.Ws. 1 and 2, that the first respondent had become mentally deranged only after her having been thrown out of the matrimonial home. Plea of the petitioner that he was duped into matrimony, suppressing the fact of mental derangement of his wife, was not accepted by both the Courts below and to my mind correctly, on the evidence available on record. The Court belows has taken note of the specific fact that prior to 1982 -83 first respondent could not have been incapacitated, since she was working as a Teacher in a school, prior to matrimony. Factually wilful neglect was found and maintenance to each of the respondents, as stated earlier, was ordered. The Court below also took note of the law that mere receipt of lumpsum payment, which will not be commensurate with the maintenance that the wife and daughter could normally be entitled to, cannot stand in the way of the wife and daughter pleading for a regular monthly maintenance award.

(3.) WHEN evidence is available that the wife was not only ill -treated by her husband but dowry demand was also made, his inhuman behaviour is so patent. Further, the case of the wife through her father, that she was sent away from the matrimonial home, only on that score, has also been accepted. There is no gainsaying of the fact that only because of the conduct of the husband the wife had become mentally deranged and became incapacitated. The behaviour of the husband is nothing short of wilful neglect and the wife and the minor daughter have a right to be maintained by the husband, who is under a legal as well as moral obligation to do so.