R K SAMUEL Vs. FHTSAMUEL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a summons taken out by the plaintiff asking that the defendant be ordered to pay to the plaintiff a sum of Rs. 1,500 or such other sum as the Court may direct on account of and towards the costs of the suit.

(2.) The parties are wife and husband, are members of the Jewish community, and profess the Jewish religion. The plaintiff wife seeks in this suit to obtain a judicial separation from the husband. The suit was instituted on 13 May 1929, and on 21 May, Costello, J., made an order for alimony and the payment of Rs. 300 on account of the plaintiff's costs of the suit.

(3.) It is conceded that the question of the power of the Court to make such an order was not raised on that occasion. There is a recent decision of the Bombay High Court, Benjamin v. Benjamin 50 Bom. 369 (1925), to the effect that the High Court has power to grant a decree nisi for the dissolution of a marriage between Jews. The Court, however, in that ease made it clear that the decree asked for and made was made in the exercise of the ordinary original civil jurisdiction conferred by Clause 12, Letters Patent, and not by virtue of the jurisdiction conferred by Clause 35, which is limited to "matters matrimonial between our subjects professing the Christian religion."