The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and applicability of S.127(3)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Code in the context of maintenance for a divorced wife.

1. This Revision was directed to be placed before the Full Bench to consider the correctness of certain observations in the ruling of a Division Bench of this Court in Kunhi Moyin v. Pathumma (1976 KLT. 87). The Revision has been preferred by the divorced wife of the respondent. (The parties are Ezhavas, governed, at the -relevant lime, by the Travancore Ezhava Act 1100). She filed M. C, No. 29 of 1967 before

the I Class Magistrate's Court, Neyyattinkara, for maintenance under S.488 of the Criminal Procedure Code, for herself and her three children on the ground of neglect by the respondent. Maintenance was decreed at the rate of Rs.160/-per mensem for all the four together. The respondent thereafter filed the Ezhava Summary No. 3 of 1968 on the file of the Munsiff's Court Trivandrum, for dissolution of his marriage with the petitioner under S.8 of the Travancore Ezhava Act. A decree for dissolution was passed on 31-3-1970. That, Section requires that the petitioner shall, in all cases, offer in the petition, reasonable compensation to the respondent except where such respondent has changed his or her religion, S.9 further provides that the reasonableness of the compensation is to be determined by the court after an enquiry into the petition, and that it shall in no case exceed Rs. 2000/- where the petitioner is the husband; and Rs. 500/-where the petitioner is the wife. In this case, the maximum compensation of Rs. 2000/-was ordered against the respondent. This amount was also paid. The respondent then filed an application under S.488 of the Criminal Procedure Code for cancellation of the maintenance awarded in favour of the petitioner. This application was also allowed some time in 1970. In the new Criminal Procedure Code of 1973, a divorced wife was also included within the ambit of S.125 (I) of the Code. S.125 takes the place of S.488 of the earlier Code. Clause (b) of the explanation to sub-section (I) of the said Section enacts that a'wife' includes a woman who has been divorced by, or has obtained a divorce from, her husband and has not been re-married. The explanation was squarely attracted to the petitioner, and taking advantage of the same, she filed M. C. No. 36 of 1974 for maintenance, before the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Neyyattinkara. That application was dismissed by the Magistrate on the ground that S.127 (3) of the Code operated as a bar to the maintainability of the application. The Magistrate took the view that as the petitioner had received the whole of the sum payable under the personal law on divorce, the application was not maintainable. We extract S.127:

"127. (1) On proof of a change in the circumstances of any person, receiving under.S.125 a monthly allowance, or ordered under the same section to pay a monthly allowance to his wife, child, father or mother, as the case may be, the Magistrate may make such alteration in the allowance as he thinks fit.

Provided that if he increases the allowance, the monthly rate of five hundred rupees in the whole shall not be exceeded.

(2) Where it appears to the Magistrate that, in consequence of any decision of a competent Civil Court, any order made under S.125 should be cancelled or varied, he shall cancel the order or, as the case may be, vary the same accordingly.

(3) Where any order has been made under S.125 in favour of a woman who has been divorced by, or has obtained a divorce from, her husband, the magistrate shall, if he is satisfied that

(a) the woman has, after the date of such divorce, remarried, cancel such order as from the date of her remarriage;

(b) the woman has been divorced by her husband and that she has received, whether before or after the date of the said order, the whole of the sum which, under any customary or personal law applicable to the parties, was payable on such divorce, cancel such order,

(i) in the case where such sum was paid before such order, from the date on. which such order was made,

(ii) in any other case, from the date