SUGANDHABAI Vs. VASANT GANPAT DEOBHAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CRIMINAL Application No. 46 of 1989 is a proceeding initiated under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Criminal Application No. 585 of 1991 was filed initially as Criminal Revision petition, but under the orders passed today, the same was allowed to be converted into an application under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Both of these applications involve a common question of law, and the facts are more or less similar. Therefore, with the consent of the advocates for the parties, the same are being disposed of by a common judgment. Both of them are petitions made by wives, whose claim under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for maintenance has been disallowed by both the courts below.

(2.) THE facts, as-much-as they are relevant for the purposes of this decision in Criminal Application No. 46 of 1989 are as follows: the petitioner-wife had preferred an application under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, bearing Criminal Misc. Application No. 36 of 1975, in the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Parner, District-Ahmednagar. After hearing, the same, came to be dismissed on 3-3-1979 on the ground that the neglect of the wife by the husband as required by the said section was not proved. Criminal Revision Application No. 78 of 1979 preferred in the Sessions Court at Ahmednagar, came to be dismissed on the same grounds on 4-1-1980. Thereafter, the husband had filed Hindu Marriage Petition No. 25 of 1980 in the Court of Civil Judge, Senior Division, Ahmednagar for divorce under section 13 (1) (i-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act, on the ground of desertion of wife. The said petition came to be decreed on 30-9-1982 and the divorce was given to the husband as prayed for by him. No application for maintenance or permanent alimony was preferred by the wife in that proceeding. After the divorce, the petitioner wife filed in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Parner, another application under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, bearing No. 90 of 1982, claiming maintenance allowance at the rate of Rs. 350/- per month. She had contended in that petition that she was since a divorce, who was unable to maintain herself and her former husband-respondent had neglected her. The learned Magistrate dismissed this application on 18-10-1985 on the ground of res judicata. Criminal Revision Application No. 337 of 1985 preferred against that decision came to be dismissed at the hands of 2nd Additional Session Judge, Ahmednagar, on 25-1-1988 be course the learned Additional Sessions Judge was of the opinion "that in view of the repeated application-the application by the divorced wife alone only because she is a divorced wife is not maintainable and hence the lower Court has rightly dismissed the application. Similarly, though the repeated applications are not barred by principle of res judicata, the applications in which the same facts are alleged and agitated are not maintainable. " Having felt aggrieved by this order of dismissal of revision petition, the present petitioner-wife has moved this Court for quashing of the aforesaid order.

(3.) IN Criminal Application No. 585 of 1991, the facts were as follows: