ANUSAYABAI VASUDEV ADKAR Vs. VASUDEO SAMBHU ADKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is preferred by the petitioner wife against the respondent-husband. The petitioner had originally filed Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 117 of 1985 in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Madha under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure praying for maintenance to be awarded to her @ Rs. 400/- per month. The respondent-husband contested the application on merits, his basic contention being that the petitioner was not his wife in so far as he had not gone through any ceremony of marriage with her. The respondent had disputed the status of the applicant and had also contended that under these circumstances, she was wholly disentitled to prefer an application under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The learned Magistrate, after recording evidence of the parties accepted the applicants contention that she was the wife of the respondent and having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, passed an order dated 12th December, 1986, directing the respondent to pay maintenance @ Rs. 150/- per month from the date of the filing of the application.

(2.) THE respondent-husband thereafter moved the Sessions Court at Solapur through Criminal Revision Application No. 39 of 1987. The basic contention raised by him was to the effect that the so-called marriage referred to by the applicant-wife was a void marriage by virtue of the fact that it was in contravention of the provisions of the Prevention of Hindu Bigamous Marriage Act, 1946. It was contended that the applicant being the second wife had, admittedly, contracted a bigamous marriage and that consequently, she could not come within the ambit of the legal definition of the term "wife" as far as section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was concerned. It was further contended that the applicant-wife was a person of loose moral character and that she had conceived the daughter as a result of an unchaste life and consequently, the respondent had denied the paternity of the daughter.

(3.) THE learned Sessions Judge on the basis of the material placed before him recorded the conclusion that the marriage between the parties was hit by the provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Bigamous Marriages Act, 1946 and that consequently, the wife was disentitled from claiming any maintenance under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is against this order that the petitioner-wife has presented the present petition.