MUKAN KUNWAR Vs. AJEHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision application was filed as a civil miscellaneous first appeal purporting to be against an order of the learned District Judge, Jodhpur, refusing to grant maintenance pendente lite and expenses of proceedings to the applicant under section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. It was treated as a revision on the application of the applicant since an order passed under Section 24 of the Hindu marriage Act, 1955, is not an appealable order. The application has been contested on behalf of the respondent.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to the present application are these. Smt. Mukan Kunwar applicant is the legally wedded wife of Ajeetchand, who filed a petition against her under Section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, for the annulment of their marriage on the ground that the wife was impotent at the time of marriage and continued to be so until the institution of the proceeding. The applicant filed an application under Section 24 for maintenance pendente lite and expenses of proceedings. The learned District Judge found that the applicant had no independent income at all and the nett monthly income of the respondent was Rs. 107/- per month. Yet he declined to grant any maintenance pendente lite and expenses of proceedings on the ground that the wife had refused to go and live with the husband, that an attempt to bring about reconciliation between the two had failed, that prior to the husband's petition for divorce the applicant took no steps to claim maintenance from him and that she was being maintained by her parents. On behalf of the applicant it is urged that the reasons given by the learned District judge are no reasons at all for depriving her of maintenance pendente lite and expenses of proceedings and that the order is arbitrary and capricious. On behalf of the respondent it was contended that the order passed by the learned District judge was within his jurisdiction and there can he no interference with the exercise of his discretion under Section 115, C. P. C.

(3.) SECTION 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, runs as follows :