RAM RATAN Vs. MEENA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER Ram Ratan has applied for a revision of the order of learned Magistrate First Class No. 1, Jodhpur, dated March 26, 1962, granting a maintenance allowance of Rs. 25/- per mensem to non-petitioner Smt. Meena. The learned Magistrate held that Smt. Meena was the wife of Ram Ratan and was entitled to the grant of the maintenance allowance, and although that order was assailed in the court of session, the revision petition was dismissed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Jodhpur on June 20, 1962.

(2.) THE only point which has been urged by the petitioner's learned counsel in this Court is that as all the evidence in the case was not taken in the presence of the husband and as the husband's personal attendance had not been dispensed with so as to justify the recording of the evidence in the presence of his pleader, the order of the learned Magistrate cannot be said to be in conformity with the provisions of sub-section (6) of section 483 Cr. P. C. It has further been argued that those provisions are mandatory and that the impugned order should therefore be set aside for that reason. As no other argument has been advanced before me, it is not necessary to state the facts of the case in any detail. It would be sufficient to mention that Smt. Meena claimed that she was the wife of Ram Ratan who treated her with cruelty and had neglected to maintain her. It is not in dispute that Ram Ratan was earning Rs. 100/- per mensem as a "signal-helper" in the railway. Ram Ratan denied that Smt. Meena was his wife or that he had treated her with cruelty and his main defence in the Magistrate's court was that he was not the husband of Smt. Meena. That contention was, however, rejected by the learned Magistrate for satisfactory reasons and the finding in that respect has not been assailed in this Court.