GANGOTRI DEVI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FORSAKEN by her husband due to disease of Leokoderma and incapability to beget children the petitioner resigned to her fate which evoked the sympathy of her aunt-in-law who executed a will in favour of petitioner of her share, which had devolved on her after the death of her husband.

(2.) IN 1959, after her aunt's death, opposite party no. 3, petitioner's husband, who had four children with another wife, tried to grab the property which forced the petitioner to seek remedy of injunction which was decided in terms of compromise on 13-8-1959, much before the Ceiling Act was enforced in the State, and petitioner was accepted tenant of land bequeathed in her favour.

(3.) THE question of judicial separation, therefore, arises in relation to a Bhumidhar, Sirdar or Asami. Such a person may be Hindu or a Muslim or Christian or of any other caste. Can the expression 'judicially separated' therefore, be understood in the technical sense as used in Section 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act as has been held by the appellate authority or in wider sense descriptive of a state of affairs between husband and wife. A judicial separation means suspension of the relationship between husband and wife. It is not an annulment of the marriage. In other words they continue as husband and wife although they do not discharge their marital obligations. THEre is no provision like Sec. 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act in Muslim Law or Indian Christianity Act. If the words 'judicially separated' are understood as in Section 10 of Hindu Marriage Act, then obviously it would apply only to Hindus and not to Muslims or persons of other religions. Such a construction cannot be accepted particularly when the legislature deliberately did not use the words 'Judicially separated' as in Hindu Succession Act.