DURGA BAI Vs. MANGI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS case arisen out of unusual circumstances. The applicant brought a suit claiming maintenance from the non -applicant alleging that she was a legally wedded wife of the non -applicant from whom three issues were born to her. Two of them are since dead and one daughter Bhagwatibai has been married off.

(2.) THE applicant/plaintiff has alleged that she cohabited with the non -applicant for 15 years and when she noted illicit relations of the non -applicant with one Gulab Bai and objected, she was thrown out of the house by the non -applicant. In the plaint maintenance has been asked for on the basis of an oral agreement also laid to have been entered into between the non -applicant and the father of the applicant. In Paragraph 8 of the plaint, it has been alleged that when the applicant/plaintiff was minor her father agreed to give her away in marriage to the non -applicant on condition of his settling 10 acres of land or Rs. 200/ - per month for separate living and maintenance of the applicant to ensure that she is not illtreated or condoned by the non -applicant. A prayer for interim maintenance was also made.

(3.) HAVING gone through the record of the case I find that the trial court has examined the case only from the angle of validity of the marriage under (he Hindu Law. It has failed to examine the case on the basis of the alleged agreement between the non -applicant and the applicant's father. Even the parties arguing before laid stress on the point whether maintenance can be claimed by a person who claims to be the second wife. To my mind real controversy between the parties is as to whether an agreement entered into by a minor girl's father with a major person giving his daughter in marriage to such a person on certain conditions can be enforced at law or not. This is an arguable point and can not be brushed aside by summarily rejecting it.