JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:— Social justice is not constitutional claptrap but fighting faith which enlivens legislative texts with militant meaning. The points pressed in the Special Leave Petition, which are negative, illustrate the functional relevance of social justice as an aid to statutory interpretation.

2. The conjugal tribulations of Mrs. Veena, the respondent, who hopefully married Capt. Kaushal, the petitioner, and bore two young children by him, form the tragic backdrop to this case. The wife claimed that although her husband was affluent and once affectionate, his romantic tenderness turned into flagallant tantrums after he took to the skies as pilot in the Indian Airlines Corporation. Desertion, cruelty and breakup of family followed, that sombre scenerio which, in its traumatic frequency, flaring up even into macabre episodes, consternates our urban societies. The offspring of the young wedlock were not only two vernal innocents but two dismal litigations - one for divorce, by the husband, hurling charges of adultery, and the other for maintenance, by the wife, flinging charges of affluent cruelty and diversion of affection after the Airlines assignment. These are versions, not findings.

3. We do not enter the distressing vicissitudes of this marital imbroglio since proceedings are pending and incidental moralizings, unwittingly injuring one or the other party, are far from our intent and outside the orbit of the present petition. Even so, we cannot help but observe that the current Indian ethos rightly regards the family and its stability as basic to the strength of the social fabric and the erotic doctrine of sip every flower and change every hour and the philosophy of philandering selffulfilment, unless combated on the militant basis of gender justice and conditions of service, are fraught with catastrophic possibilities. All public sector (why, private sector too) institutions, including the Airlines, must manifest, in their codes of discipline, this consciousness of social justice and inner morality as essential to its life style. Lascivious looseness of man or wife is an infectious disease and marks the beginning of the end of the material and spiritual meaning of collective life. The roots of the rule of law lie deep in the collective consciousness of a community and this sociology factor has a role to play in understanding provisions like S. 125 Cr. P.C. which seek to inhibit neglect of women and children, the old man the infirm. A facet of this benignancy of S. 125 falls for study in the present proceeding.

4. The husband sought divorce through the civil court and the wife claimed maintenance through the criminal court. As an interim measure, the District Court awarded maintenance and the High Court fixed the rate at 400/- per mensem for the spouse as a provisional figure. Meanwhile, the magistrate, on the evidence before him, ordered ex parte, monthly maintenance at Rs. 1000/- for the mother and two children together.

5. Shri S.T. Desai urged two points which merit reflection but meet with rejection. They are that (i) a civil courts determination of the quantum entitled to serious weight and the criminal court, in its summary decision, fell into an error in ignoring the former, (ii) the awardable maximum for mother and children, as a whole under S. 125 of the Code was Rs. 500/-, having regard to the text of the section.

6. Broadly stated and as an abstract proposition, it is valid to assert, as Sri Desai did, that a final determination of a civil right by a civil court must prevail against a like decision by a criminal court. But here two factors make the principle inapplicable. Firstly, the direction by the civil court is not a final determination under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act but an order pendente lite, under S. 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act to pay the expenses of the proceeding, and monthly during the proceeding such sum as, having regard to the petitioners own income and the income of the