UMED SINGH Vs. RAJPATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Section 482, Cr.P.C. for quashing orders of the trial magistrate and the revisional court passed in proceedings under Section 125, Cr.P.C. whereby the said two courts have consistently granted maintenance to the respondent -wife @ Rs. 200/ - per month and Rs. 100/ - per month for her infant child. Though I am of the considered opinion that this petition cannot be entertained by just labeling it as one mount to circumventing the provisions under Section 482, Crl.P.C., its that would amount of section 397 (2) Cr.P.C., yet since the learned counsel for the petitioner is vehement in urging that there is a law point involved in the case which goes to the very root of it I have chosen to examine the matter.

(2.) THE submission of the learned counsel in this regard is that since both the courts below have recorded a conclusion in the light of the copy of the judgment Ex R I of the civil court that the respondent wife had given birth to an illegitimate child it should have been assumed that she was living in adultery, and, thus, disentitled to any amount of maintenance. I, however, find no merit in this submission of the learned counsel. No doubt, it is true that such a finding has been recorded by the civil court, and that finding is binding on the court under the Code of Criminal Procedure, in view of M/s Karam Chand Ganga Parshad v. Union of India, AIR 1971 SC 1244. Yet I am of the firm view that merely giving birth to an illegitimate child by a woman does not mean that "she is living in adultery." To disentitle her to maintenance under sub -section (4) of section 125, Cr.P.C. it has to be shown that the applicant -wife was guilty of a course of adulterous conduct as virtue to the light of this I find dismissed as totally devoid of merit.