BALIRAM RAM Vs. RADHIKA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been filed by a defendant against whom his wife, opposite party No. 1, and two minor children, opposite party Nos. 2 and 3, have instituted a suit claiming maintenance and separate residence inter alia, on the allegation that the petitioner has been keeping a concubine.

(2.) The question that arises for decision of this court is as to whether the the court can pass an order for ad interim maintenance during the pendency of an action under Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 (to be referred to as 'the Act').

(3.) According to the provisions contained in Section 18 of the Act, a Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of the Act, is entitled to be maintained by her husband during her lifetime and she is entitled to live separately from her husband without forfeiting her claim to maintenance on the various grounds enumerated in Sub-section (2) of Section 18, one of them being that the husband keeps a concubine in the same house in which his wife is living or habitually resides with a concubine elsewhere. This is the ground on which the wife has founded, her claim for separate residence from the husband and has claimed the maintenance.