( 1 ) THIS revisional application raises an interesting question as to interpretation of the word mother occurring in sec. 125 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 (Code) and the question is whether that expression includes a step-mother.

( 2 ) THE facts are very brief. The parties are Mohmedans and the petitioner who is the step-mother of the opposite parties instituted a proceeding for maintenance under sec. 125 of the Code being Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 85 of 1975 before the Judicial Magistrate. First Class at Rajkot making the necessary averments entitling her to maintenance. One of the grounds on which the claim of the petitioner was contested was that the petitioner being step-mother does not fall within the expression mother and therefore irrespective of the merits of the case the petition is likely to fail. The learned trial Magistrate raised several issues. However he determined issue No. 1 as a preliminary issue. That issue was whether the application was maintainable ? The learned Magistrate accepted the contention observing as under:the plain natural dictionary meaning of the word Mother is a female parent. Parent means one who begets or brings forth; that which produces or that from which anything springs. There are other extended meanings of the word mother but we are not concerned with them. If the legislature really intended to extend the provision to the step mother it could have specified the step-mother as has been done in the case of illegitimate child and divorced wife who has not remarried. The Court has to interpret particular section according to its plain words and without doing violence to the language used by the Legislature. The fact that under the provisions of Mohmmedan Law step-mother is entitled to maintenance can be of no help here because sec. 125 of the Act is applicable to all people irrespective of caste creed community or nationality. He therefore came to the view that the word mother does not include the step-mother. The result was that the petition for maintenance came to be dismissed. Being aggrieved the petitioner has invoked the revisional jurisdiction of this Court.

( 3 ) AS the question involved was of general importance in so far as the remedy provided by sec. 125 of the Code was concerned the members of the bar were permitted to intervene and M/s. A. D. Shah and B. C. Patel intervened. Both of them rendered valuable assistance to the Court by referring to the provisions of personal law of Hindus and Mohmed- ans as well as the dictionary meanings. The Court is beholden to them for the assistance rendered.

( 4 ) IN interpreting the provisions of sec. 125 of the Code we must in the first place bear in mind that the main object of this provision was to prevent vagrancy. Secondly the provision has a social purpose to fulfill irrespective of the personal law of the parties. Keeping these two considerations in mind it is obvious that no interpretation should be adopted which will aim at defeating the main object of the legislation. It is not uncommon to find that a man having begotten children marries again after the death of his first wife the children get up and become major. Still the father the sons and daughters and a step-mother all live in the same family under the same roof as a unit. This state of affairs even continues after the fathers death so that the step-mother and her children continue to remain under the same roof. These are common place occurrences of human existence so far as this country is concerned. The affinity brought about by the fathers marriage between the stepmother and the step-children is not sapped by fathers death. If in a given case therefore difference is developed between the step-mother and the step-sons with the result that the step-mother is uncared for would a strict interpretation of such a beneficial provision of law be justified ? Such a strict interpretation would rather encourage vagrancy and thus defeat the m