PADMANNA MALKARI MALI Vs. BHOURAWWA PADMANNA MALI SOU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision is preferred against the order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Sangli directing the revision petitioner-husband to pay maintenance of Rs. 75/- per month to the 1st respondent-wife from the date of her application under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code i.e. with effect from 29th July, 1975. The petitioner was also required to pay Rs. 200/- as cost of the litigation.

(2.) Originally, Criminal Case No. 19 of 1975 was filed in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Jath by the wife. The said Judicial Magistrate by his order dated 25th September, 1979 dismissed the application for maintenance. The Magistrate is his order refers to an act by the husband of branding the wife but dismissed it from consideration on the ground that the act was subsequent to the date of the application. With such a husband present before the Court, the Magistrate should have been quick in accepting the other allegations of ill-treatment but on the contrary and rather surprisingly the Magistrate held the allegations of ill-treatment as not proved. The husband was a person who almost in the face of the Court had got the wife to admit his good behaviour by branding her. Such reprehensible conduct makes it extremely likely that this person must have ill-treated the wife earlier.

(3.) The aggrieved wife carried the matter to the Sessions Court at Sangli and the Criminal Revision Application No. 159 of 1979 was heard by the Additional Sessions Judge, Sangli. He considered whether it was necessary to remand the case but in his opinion, on the evidence, the wife has made out a case in respect of the necessary particulars and hence it was not necessary to direct a remand. I have gone carefully through the two judgments and as already indicated, the approach and the conclusion of the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Jath are superficial, unsatisfactory and unacceptable. As contrasted with this approach, the approach of the Additional Sessions Judge, Sangli is a more satisfactory one. He has discussed the evidence in depth although, it was a criminal revision application, he was entitled to discuss the evidence in depth because of the very curious and cursory approach adopted by the Judicial Magistrate which required the conclusions of the Judicial Magistrate to be totally ignored.