SHYLENDRA KUMAR J.

( 1 ) THE plaintiff in O. S. No. 29/93 before the Family Court. Bijapur is the appellant in this appeal, being aggrieved by the dismissal of the Family Court and to decree the suit in her favour.

( 2 ) FOR the sake of convenience, the parties in this appeal will be REFERRED TO their respective ranks in the suit. The suit which had been originally filed before the Principal Munsiff, Bijapur and had been numbered as O. S. 495/91 and which was transferred later on the establishment of Family Court, Bijapur and renumbered as O. S. 29/93 before the Family Court, was for a declaration that the plaintiff along with her minor daughters, are entitled to received all the benefits that are payable on the death of her husband Somanath Tarapur of Savalgi who had been employed by the first defendant K. S. R. T. C. and was working at Jamkhandi depot and for a consequential permanent injunction to restrain the second defendant one Smt. Shantha Rao @ Renuka in the matter of receiving such benefits from the first defendant Corporation.

( 3 ) THE plaint averments were that the plaintiff was married to one Somanath Tarapur s/o Basanna Tarapur, a resident of Savalgi village, Bijapur Taluk on 20/05/1982, that the marriage had been preceded by an engagement ceremony that took place on 13-4-1982 at Shivanagi village; that after the marriage, the plaintiff and her husband led a happy married life; that two daughters were born out of the wedlock namely Sunitha in the year 1983 and Anita in the year 1984; that their married life was alright till then, but after this, the husband of the plaintiff took to bad habits, started ill-treating the plaintiff and her children; that he brought Shanta, the 2nd defendant to their house which led to strained relationship between the plaintiff and her husband ; that the due to such squabbles in the house, they had to move from one neighbourhood to another, that ultimately the plaintiff was forced to leave the marital house and was compelled to have shelter in her parents house.

( 4 ) AS her husband had failed to maintain and neglected to look after the plaintiff and her children, the plaintiff had to petition for maintenance in Crl. Misc. 59/88 before the J. M. F. C. Dharwar and the said petition came to be allowed in the year 1990 awarding a sum of Rs. 250/- in favour of the plaintiff and Rs. 125/- each in favour of the minor children; that her husband died on 2-9-1991; that the plaintiff was forced to file recovery petition as her husband did not pay the maintenance amount awarded by the Court and subsequent to the death of her husband on 2-9-1991, the second defendant started claiming herself to be the legally wedded wife of her husband Somanath Tarapur and filed a suit in O. S. 364/91 against the plaintiffs mother-in-law and had obtained an ex parte decree declaring that the second defendant was the legally wedded wife of the deceased Somanath and that she alone was entitled to receive all the benefits which the employer of deceased /somanath Tarapur would pay to his legal heirs and in view of such a situation, the plaintiff was forced to file a suit for declaration that she alone is the legally wedded wife of the deceased Somanath Tarapur and she and her children are entitled to receive the benefits payable by the employer of her deceased husband and the second defendant was not entitled to lay claim for such benefits.

( 5 ) THE suit claim was resisted. The first defendant remained neutral in the sense that it would abide by the decision of the Court.

( 6 ) THE second defendant contested the suit and claimed that she is the legally wedded wife of deceased Somanath Tarapur; that the plaintiff was not the widow of the deceased Somanath Tarapur as alleged in the plaint; that she did not know and does not admit the so called marriage of the plaintiff with deceased Somanath Tarapur on 20-5-1982 at Shivanagi village; that it was false to plead so and though the same was not a fact it was only to suit

Click Here to Read the rest of this document