MOHAN RAM Vs. BADAMO DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application in revision against an order passed under Section 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

(2.) IT appears that the opposite party filed an application for grant of maintenance on the allegations that the petitioner had married her and after some time treated her cruelly and turned her out of his house and refused to maintain her. The application was resisted by the petitioner on the ground that she . was not at all his wedded wife and that he had another wife, who was still alive, living with him and that the opposite party had been instigated by one Jaddu Ram to make a false claim and thereby to put him to public humiliation. The learned Magistrate, upon a consideration of the evidence on record allowed the application and directed payment of Rs. 30/- per month by the petitioner to the opposite party for her maintenance.

(3.) IN that case before the learned Judges a similar plea had been taken by the husband to the effect that he had been married to another person, a cousin sister of the applicant of that case and not to the applicant. The Magistrate had, however, found, upon evidence in that case, that the opposite party in that case had been first married to the cousin sister of the applicant nearly 12 years ago and that the aforesaid marriage subsisted at the time the opposite party was married to the applicant. On the basis of these facts, the learned Judges came to the conclusion that the second marriage with the petitioner before their Lordships could not be legal, in view of the fact that the second marriage offended the provisions of Section 5(1) of the Hindu Marriage Act, and, consequently, was void. On the strength of this decision, it has been urged that even in the present case the fact having been admitted that one of the previous wives was alive, the marriage with the opposite party must be deemed to be void. I am unable to accept this contention for the reasons given hereinafter.