SURJIT KAUR @ NASIB KAUR Vs. GURDEV SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition by Smt. Surjit Kaur alias Nasib Kaur, purported to have been filed under Section 401 of the code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, the Code), is directed against the order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Sangrur, dated May 28, 1981.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to this petition are in a narrow compass. Smt. Surjit Kaur petitioner filed a complaint against Gurdev Singh and other accused -respondents alleging therein that she was married to Gurdev Singh respondent and that the latter had contracted second marriage with Amarjit Kaur in connivance with the other accused. She led preliminary evidence in support of her pleadings in the complaint and the trial Magistrate found a prima facie case against the accused respondents and accordingly summoned them for 17.1.1981. Feeling aggrieved, the accused respondents went up in revision and the same was accepted by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sangrur, on 28.5.1981. Relying on a decision in Diya Wanti and others v. State of Haryana, 1979 C.L.R. 110 and also on the averment made by the petitioner in the complaint that the parties were the followers of Hindu Lal, the learned Additional Sessions Judge held that the parties being the followers of Hindu Law, the second marriage of Gurdev Singh respondent with Amarjit Kaur having been performed by means of Anand -Karaj, that marriage could not be said to be a valid marriage. Feeling dissatisfied Smt. Surjit Kaur has now come up in revision.

(3.) AT the outset, Mr. S.S. Barnala, learned counsel for the petitioner, has urged with persistence that the petitioner has averred in her complaint that the parties were Hindu and the followers of Hindu Law because the Hindu Marriage Act equally applies to Sikhs, otherwise for all intents and purposes the parties are Sikhs and their marriage was performed by means of anand -Karaj and that this fact is established by the voluminous evidence led by the petitioner and hence the order of trial court summoning the accused respondents was a legal order which could not be set aside by the Additional Sessions Judge. On the other hand, Mr. Bachittar Singh, learned counsel for the respondents, has placed reliance on a decision in Diya Wanti's case, (supra), and contended that since the petitioner in her complaint has clearly mentioned that the parties were the followers of Hindu Law and had entered into a marriage by means of Anand -Karaj, they could not be regarded as husband and wife.