SRIBATAHA BARIK Vs. MUSAMAT PADMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision against an order passed by Sri D. Naik, Sub-divisional magistrate, Athmallik in Case No. 13-M of 1967 ordering the petitioner to pay a sum of Rs. 40/- per month with effect from the date of the institution of the said case on 26-6-1967, towards the maintenance of his wife, the opposite party and his minor son, who are now living away from the petitioner. While passing this order, the Magistrate has further ordered that if the petitioner does not choose to pay the maintenance as aforesaid, he is to live in the house of his wife's parents and to maintain them according to the desire of his wife.

(2.) THE petitioner's wife (the opposite party) filed the aforesaid case against her husband (the petitioner), on the allegation that she being the only daughter of her parents, her father, negotiated with the petitioner, and on getting his consent kept him as Ghar Jwain after performing their marriage. The petitioner lived with his wife in his father-in-law's house for a few years and thereafter, on two or three previous occasions, he left that place and went away to his own village on creating troubles and picking up quarrels with her and her parents. The petitioner has come back to his father-in-law's village with his widowed mother, but is living separately from his wife in his own house, and is not agreeable to stay with her in her father's house in spite of her repeated requests and the decisions of the village panch. The opposite party as such is remaining in her father's house with her child four and half years old, and the petitioner, does not care to maintain her and her child.

(3.) THE petitioner, on the other hand contended that he could not Jive in his fatherin-law's house because of ill-treatment meted out to him there. He stated in his written statement that he was and is always ready and willing to maintain his wife, and his son if they would come over and live with him in his house, in the same village. Instead of the wife and child coming to live with the petitioner, his wife, on the ill-advice of her father, is rather insistent upon him that he should come and live with her in her father's house.