ANANDILAL BHAGCHAND MARWADI Vs. CHANDRABAI TATYA PATIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff in this case claimed maintenance as the kept mistress of the deceased Chauthmal from his heirs. She alloyed that for nearly four years prior to his death she had been living with Chauthmal practically as his wife, and on his death she was entitled to be maintained out of his estate. In defence it was pleaded that the plaintiff's husband Tatya was alive, that the connection between the plaintiff and the deceased Chauthmal was adulterous and that she was not entitled to maintenance from the estate of Chauthmal. Roth the lower Courts have disallowed this defence and decreed the plaintiff's claim.

(2.) The defendants have appealed and it is urged in support of the appeal that though she might be an avaruddha stree so far as the mode of her living with Chauthmal was concerned, her husband was throughout alive, that the connection was adulterous, and that a person in the position of the plaintiff is not entitled to maintenance, as she cannot be properly speaking an avaruddha stree, who would be entitled to be maintained out of the estate of her keeper. On the other hand it is urged that the decision in Khemkor V/s. Umashankar (1873) 10 B.H.C.R. 381. is a clear authority on this point, and that if she has lived as an avaruddha stree would live, the nature of her connection cannot affect her right to be maintained.

(3.) A woman, who has lived an adulterous life while her husband is alive, has a limited right of maintenance against her husband according to Hindu law. Verse 70 of the Yajnavalkya Smriti (Achara Adhyaya) and Vijnanesvara's commentary thereon show that she is entitled to bare maintenance from her husband. The translation of this portion as given in the Translation of Achara Adhyaya by Srischandra Vidyamana (published by the Bhuvaneshwar Press, p. 136) is as follows:-- The author now describes how unchaste women are to be treated. Yajnavalkya. LXX --The unchaste wife should be deprived of authrioty, should be unadorned, allowed food barely sufficient to sustain her body, rebuked, and let sleep on low bed, and thus allowed to dwell 70. Mitakshara. She who commits adultery, should be deprived of authority i. e. the "control over servants and the management of the house-hold etc., should be taken away. She should be kept unadorned i. e. without collyrium, ointments, white cloth or ornaments; with food enough to naintain her body and sustain her life merely, and rebuked with censure and c., and sleeping on low bed, on the ground, and allowed to dwell, only in his house. This should be done in order to produce repentance, and not for purification.