RAM CHAND SAUDAGAR RAM Vs. JIWAN BAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition for revision is directed against an order of Additional Sessions judge, Ludhiana, maintaining that of Magistrate, 1st Class, Ludhiana, under per mensem to the respondent.

(2.) A long-standing dispute and consequent litigation is going on between ramchand, the petitioner, and his wife, Jiwan Bai, They were married some 25 years ago and had two daughters born to them. Somewhere in the year 1940, jiwan Bai was turned out by the petitioner. In 1942, she obtained an order under section 488, Criminal Procedure Code, from a Magistrate at Lyallpur (now in pakistan), allowing her maintenance at the rate of Rs. 10/- per month. The allowance was subsequently raised to Rs. 25/ -. After the partition in 1947, she along with her parents migrated to India, and so did the petitioner. Jiwan Bai then presented an application under Section 488, Criminal Procedure Code, to the additional District Magistrate, Ludhiana. On persuasion of the petitioner, it is stated, this application was withdrawn. On 24-11-953, she presented another application for maintenance under the same section in the Court of Mr. Jhangi Ram, Magistrate, First Class, Ludhiana. This application ended in a compromise, according to which Ram Chand undertook to pay Rs. 10/- per mensem as maintenance to his wife. Exhibit D. 1 is a copy of the composition deed. The application was, thereupon, filed. This too had no practical effect; nothing was, in fact, paid to the wife as maintenance. In the meantime, ram Chand had married a second wife. Jiwan Bai then presented the present application on 5-5-1956, under Section 488, Criminal Procedure Code.

(3.) ON behalf of the petitioner, it is contended (1) that the order of the Magistrate at Lyallpur granting maintenance to the wife stood as a bar to a fresh petition for the same purpose and (2) that a compromise having once been arrived at between the parties, the respondent ought to have got the terms thereof enforced through a civil Court. On the first point, it is submitted that the order for payment of allowance obtained under Section 488, Criminal Procedure Code, from the magistrate at Lyallpur was still valid and enforceable in the Courts at Ludhiana. Jiwan Bai ought to have got that order executed, instead of presenting a fresh application for fixation and grant of the allowance. A second application for the purpose, it is contended, is barred by application of the general principles of the rule of res judicata.