Gujarat High Court
Judgename :A.N.Divecha
RAMABEN - Appellant
Versus
STATE OF gujarat - Respondent
CRIMINAL REVISION APPLICATION 853 of 1991
Decided On : 09/09/1992
Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 – Section 125, 397 and 401 – Hindu Marriage act, 1955 – Matrimonial dispute –Cruelty and harassment – Application for maintenance –Judicial Magistrate at gandevi accepted wife’s application for maintenance and awarded to her maintenance at rate and also costs of the proceeding at Aggrieved thereby, the husband carried the matter in revision before Sessions Court of revisional application came to be registered as Criminal Revision Application – Held, Learned Sessions Judge also appears to have lost sight of fact that he was exercising revisional powers qua order passed in maintenance proceedings instituted in lower Court – In this connection a inference deserves to be made to observations made by Krishna .in his inimitable style in ruling of Supreme Court in case of relevant observations this appeal, by special leave, we are called upon to interpret a benign provision enacted to ameliorate economic condition of wives and discarded divorcees, namely Sec. 125, Criminal Procedure Code. Welfare laws must be so read as to be effective delivery systems of salutary objects sought to be served by the legislature and when the beneficiaries are the weaker sections, like destitute women, the spirit of Art. 15 of Constitution must be light meaning of the section – Constitution is a pervasive omnipresence brooding over the meaning and transforming the values of every measure. So, Sec. 125 and sister clauses must receive a compassionate expansion of sense that words used permit dictum of law pronounced by Supreme Court in its aforesaid ruling in case of Bai Tahira will be applicable present case with all greater force for simple reason that the husband in the present case has not been able to establish at trial that the marriage between him and the present petitioner came to be validly dissolved – Revisional application is accepted.
( 1 ) WOULD Revisional Courts have to keep in mind while hearing revisional applications more particularly arising from maintenance proceedings under Sec. 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (the cr. P. C. for brief) is the main question arising in this revisional application preferred by the unfortunate wife against the judgment and order passed by the learned Sessions Judge of Bulsar at Navsari on 17/05/1991 in Criminal Revision Application No. 34 of 1990. Thereby the learned Sessions judge accepted the revisional application of respondent No. 2 herein and upset the order of maintenance passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate (First Class) at Gandevi on 28/02/1990 in Maintenance Application no. 9 of 1987. It may be mentioned that the learned trial Magistrate accepted the Maintenance Application preferred by the present petitioner and awarded to her maintenance at the rate of Rs. 400. 00 per month.
( 2 ) THE facts giving rise to this revisional application may be summarised in a nutshell. The petitioner and respondent No. 1 herein were united by a matrimonial the sometime in May, 1958. The matrimonial life between the two does not seem to have run a smooth course more particularly after the birth of a female child out of their wedlock. According to the wife, she was subjected to cruelty, both physical and mental, in her matrimonial home. It is also her case that some signature of hers was taken on a blank paper and that appears to have been converted into some divorce paper later on for the purpose of the husbands remarriage with another woman. She thereupon moved one application for maintenance under Sec. 125 of the Cr. P. C. before the Court of the Judicial Magistrate (First Class) at Gandevi for claiming maintenance from her husband respondent No. 2 herein. It came to be registered as Maintenance Application No. 9 of 1987. The husband resisted the maintenance Application on several grounds. He inter alia put up a case that his marriage with her came to be dissolved way back and he begot four children out of his wedlock with the second wife. The Maintenance Application was also sought to be resisted on the ground that it was filed with an ulterior motive after passage of nearly 30 years from the date of dissolution of the marriage between the two. After recording evidence and hearing the parties, by his judgment and order passed on 28/02/1990 in Maintenance application No. 9 of 1987, the learned Judicial Magistrate (First Class) at gandevi accepted the wifes application for maintenance and awarded to her maintenance at the rate of Rs. 400. 00 per month and also the costs of the proceeding at Rs. 100. 00. Aggrieved thereby, the husband carried the matter in revision before the Sessions Court of Bulsar at Navsari. His revisional application came to be registered as Criminal Revision Application No. 34 of 1990. After hearing arguments, by his judgment and order passed on 1 7/05/1991 in Criminal Revision Application No. 34 of 1990, the learned sessions Judge of Bulsar at Navsari set aside the impugned order of maintenance passed by the learned trial Magistrate. The aggrieved wife has thereupon invoked the revisional jurisdiction of this Court under Sec. 397 read with Sec. 401 of the Cr. P. C. for questioning the correctness of the impugned judgment and order passed by the learned Sessions Judge of Bulsar at Navsari.
( 3 ) KUM. Shah for the petitioner seems to be right in her two submissions to the effect that the learned Sessions Judge has transgressed the limits of his revisional powers for the purpose of interfering with the order of maintenance passed in favour of the wife and that the learned Sessions Judge has also overlooked the salutary dictum of law pronounced by the Supreme court in its ruling in the case of Bai Tahira v. Ali Hussain Fissali, reported in AIR 1979 SC 362.
( 4 ) THE distinction between the revisional powers and the appellate powers are succinctly pointed out in the ruling of the All
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