JUDGMENT - WAHANE B.U., J.:---By this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners sought various reliefs. However, Shri Bhattad, the learned Counsel for the petitioners/accused, specifically restricted his prayer to the effect that a direction be issued to the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Shegaon, to allow the parties to compound the offence punishable under section 498-A read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code. In the instant petition, though the learned J.M.F.C., Shegaon, is not a party, but State being the respondent No. 1 and the petition being under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, which prescribes the supervisory powers, the oral prayer made by Shri Bhattad is to be considered.

2. The petitioner Suresh Nathmal Rathi and the petitioner No. 2, Smt. Shobha wife of Suresh Rathi are the husband and wife. Petitioner No. 3 Ramesh and the petitioner No. 4 Dilip are the brothers of the petitioner No. 1 Suresh. Petitioner No. 5 Smt. Basantibai Rathi is the mother of the petitioner No. 1 Suresh.

3. The marriage between Suresh and Smt. Shobha was solemnized sometime in the year 1988. It is the case of Smt. Shobha that after the marriage, initially, she was treated well by her husband and other members of the family, but subsequently, she was given a cruel treatment. The cruel treatment being unbearable, she was compelled to lodge the report with the Police Station, Shegaon, on the basis of which an offence was registered under section 498-A read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code. After the investigation, the charge-sheet was filed against the petitioners Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 6 and the proceedings were commenced in Criminal Case No. 246/89.

4. During the pendency of the Criminal Case No. 246/89, the complainant Smt. Shobha and accused settled their dispute amicably and Smt. Shobha joined the society of her husband, started living with him and other members of his family. Petitioner No. 2 Smt. Shobha is residing with other petitioners for the last more than a year. As husband and wife being living in peace, enjoying marital bliss, an application was filed before the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Shegaon, on 25-1-1991 to accord permission to them to compound the offence and on the very day another application was filed to compound the offence. The learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Shegaon, passed the following orders on the application Exh. 34 and Exh. 35. The order below Exh. 34 is :

"The accused are alleged to have been committed the offence punishable under section 498-A read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code which is not compoundable with or without permission of the Court as provided under section 320 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Hence this application is hereby rejected."

The order below Exh. 35 is :

"In view of the order passed below Exh. 34 this composition purses is rejected."

5. Marriage, whether considered as a contract or sacrament, confers a status of husband and wife on the parties to the marriage, of legitimacy on the children of the marriage, and give rise to certain mutual rights and obligations of spouses. All over the Hindu and Christian worlds, marriage began as a sacrament. Marriage, as a sacramental, necessarily implied a permanent and indissoluble union. Hindus took the notion of indissolubility of marriage, a step further and laid down that even death did not put the marriage as under. It was a union not merely in this life but also in all lives to come — an eternal union. Thus, Hindus conceived their marriage as a holy and sacramental tie and not a contractual union. The intention of the sacramental is to make the husband and the wife one, physical and psychically, for secular and spiritual purposes, for this life and for after lives.

6. The man in incomplete without his wife, and it is wife who completes him. She is ardhangni (half of him). The wife is verily the half of the husband. Those who have wives can fulfil their due obligations in this word; those that have w

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