DILIP SINGH Vs. BHAGWANTIBAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SHRI A. Siddique learned counsel for the petitioner, the non -applicant Bhagwanti, though served has failed to appear.

(2.) HAVING heard the learned counsel, this revision petition, which is preferred against the revisional order dated 1 -10 -82 passed by the Session Judge in Criminal Revision No. 129/81 awarding maintenance allowance to the non -applicant @ Rs. 150/ - per month, is challenged in this revision. The learned Counsel has confined his argument to the following points : Firstly, the non -applicant Bhagwanti is not in need of maintenance allowance as she is herself earning Rs. 4 -5 per day as an agricultural labourer and secondly, the husband has no means of paying maintenance allowance to the non -applicant as awarded by the lower Court. It is also urged by the learned Counsel that the applicant has failed to plead in her application under Section 125 (1) Criminal Procedure Code, that she is unable to maintain herself.

(3.) TAKING up the question of pleading first : suffice it to say; that strict rules of pleading are not applicable to such proceedings, and even where pleadings are required to be turse the Supreme Court in AIR 1977 SC 1158 Smt. Manjushri Raha v. B. L. Gupta (1), has observed that in a country where there is mass illiteracy about the pleadings, the same cannot be stretched too far to defeat the very purpose of this benevolent provision of law. The Revisional Court has observed that the non -applicant in her statement before the Court has, come out with a categorical case about her own inability to maintain herself and she has been cross -examined on this point. Number of Authorities have been referred to in the order under revision and the learned Counsel also referred to a view of them. As stated above, in maintenance proceedings, it would be rather too harsh to insist on perfection of pleadings and would defeat the very purpose of the provisions of maintenance in the Act.