OONA GOWRI SHANKARA RAO Vs. OONA RAJESWARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) First respondent, the daughter of the 2nd respondent, claimed maintenance under section 125 of Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, 'the Code') in M.C. No. 43 of 1990 on the file of the Addl. Judicial 1st Class Magistrate, Parvathipuram, against the petitioner, alleging that she is his illegitimate daughter through the 2nd respondent, since the 2nd respondent, was not married to him. The learned Magistrate, upon an enquiry, allowed the petition and directed the petitioner to pay Rs. 150/- pm, from the date of filing of the petitioner towards maintenance. The petitioner assails the order of the learned Magistrate in this Criminal Revision Case.

(2.) The case of the 2nd respondent was that the petitioner, though of the same Vysya caste, took advantage of her poverty and developed illicit intimacy with her promising to keep her as his second wife, resulting in the conception and giving birth to the 1st respondent. Though the 1st respondent is the illegitimate daughter, she is entitled to claim maintenance under section 125 of the Code. In support of her case, she examined herself and three other witnesses. She deposed that she and the petitioner belong to Vysya community living in adjacent houses and she used to work in his house washing dishes and also as a cook preparing sweet-meats to supply them in the hotel run by the petitioner. When his wife went to her parents place with the children and she was left alone in his house, the petitioner, promising to keep her as second wife, had assaulted her sexually. The petitioner later on disowned her and the child was born out of the illicit intimacy. Ex.P-1, extract of the Register of Births, disclosed the name of the petitioner as the father of the child. She also examined P.Ws. 2 and 4 to prove that she used to work in the house of the petitioner that she was very intimate with the inmates of the house, and also in support of her case generally and particularly with regard to her intimacy with the petitioner. P.W. 3 is the father of the 2nd respondent and it is he who has given Ex.P-1.

(3.) The petitioner, on the other hand, totally denied any connection with her, let alone illicit intimacy and therefore his paternity of the 1st respondent. His further case was that the 2nd respondent was of easy virtue and she was set up to black mail him by the rival faction in the village. He examined himself and three other witnesses. Considering the evidence on record and placing reliance on the evidence of P.Ws. 1, 2 and 4, the learned Magistrate held that the petitioner had illicit intimacy with the 2nd respondent and the he was the putative father of the 1st respondent.