BALBIR KAUR Vs. AJIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CR . M. No. 4022 of 1984, the claim laid is that the main petition Cr. M No. 2768 of 1984 be treated as a criminal revision instead of being a petition under section 482, Criminal Code as it is originally designed. There is no opposition to the same. For all intents and purposes, the petition is a criminal revision, for the order of the trial Magistrate was set aside by the Additional Sessions Judge and this petition is against that order. A second revision is permissible in such a situation under the provisions of section 397, Criminal Procedure Code. Sexually, Cr. M. No. 2768 M of 1984 is admitted and is being disposed of simultaneously.

(2.) THE petitioner Balbir Kaur was married to the respondent Ajit Singh on 17.6.1975. A son was born out of the wedlock on 20.5.1976. On 26.8.1980, the petitioner filed petition under section 125, Criminal Procedure Code, claiming maintenance for herself as also for her minor son. The reasons for the same are not material here. The trial Magistrate came to the conclusion that the claim laid was well deserved. He accordingly awarded a maintenance of Rs. 150/ - per mensem to the petitioner and Rs. 100/ - per mensem to the minor son. Feeling aggrieved against the said order, both the parties filed criminal revision petitions before the Additional Sessions Judge, Hoshiarpur, the wife claiming enhancement and the husband claiming rejection of the claim. The petition of the wife was dismissed but that of the husband was allowed so far as the claim of the minor son was concerned. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, Hoshiarpur took the view that since in the array of the parties before the trial Magistrate, the minor son had not been arrayed as a petitioner, his claim was thus not maintainable. In the same breath, the learned Additional Sessions Judge noticed that in the body of the petition, the claim of maintenance for the minor son had been put forth and prayer had been made for the grant of maintenance. It is this view of the matter which has been challenged by wife Cr. M. No. 2768 - M of 1984 and thus the revision petition is confined to this claim.

(3.) THE beneficial provision of section 125, Criminal Code, has the prime object of saving women and children from destitution and vagrancy. Pleadings in these proceedings do not have to be meticulously drawn like that of a civil suit. It is the substance of the matter which is to be seen and not to the form. Keeping these principles in view, the claim of the minor could not be ignored, especially when he could only put forth his claim through his mother, with whom he was living. Lack of a few words in the array of parties would not render his claim to maintenance, if otherwise valid, otiose. Lack of words in the array of parties cannot in the circumstances be allowed to shadow the claim laid in the body of the petition and prayer would lead to an automatic reading of the array of the parties in the right perspective so as to further the object of section 125, Criminal Procedure Code, in treating the minor son also as a co -petitioner in the claim. In this view of the matter, the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge is not sustainable. Accordingly, the same is set aside so far it relates to the claim of the minor son. Sequally, the order of the learned Magistrate in that regard is restored.