SAINULLAH Vs. SMT. SAHIDUN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendants second appeal arising from a suit for maintenance.

(2.) The husband is the appellant and the wife is the respondent. The trial court had dismissed the suit but the lower appellate court has decreed maintenance at the rate of Rs. 60.00 per month.

(3.) The plaintiffs case was that the parties were married sometime about thirty years before the institution of the suit and the amount of mahar settled was Rs. 535/4.00. A son, Shakir Ali, was born about twenty-two years ago, but for the last seven or eight years there was some difference between the defendant and the son Shakir Ali; that for the last two or three years the habits of the defendant were changed; and he had started having drinks and illicit connections with market women or prostitutes and beating the plaintiff and had stopped paying any house-hold expenses. About a year ago, she was turned out of the house by the defendant, and therefore she started living with her son Shakir Ali. The plaintiff then filed a criminal proceeding u/s; 488, Cr. P. C. for maintenance; that the said proceeding was however compromised due to the intervention of some well-wishers and the plaintiff again went to live with the defendant; that about a month thereafter the defendants habits again became bad and he stopped paying the house-hold expenses and that about a month and a half before the filing of the suit the defendant one day came back home drunk, and when the plaintiff asked for house-hold expenses the defendant was very angry and abused, beat, and turned the plaintiff out of the house. It was then alleged that the defendant was employed in the stores department of the North Eastern Railway as a Khalasi and that his pay was Rupees 160.00 per month at that time and that besides the same he had about five bighas of agricultural land which yielded good income. On these pleas the plaintiff claimed Rs. 60.00 per month as maintenance. The relief claimed was for a direction to the defendant to pay the plaintiff maintenance at the rate of Rupees 60.00 per month.