Woman marrying a man bigamously cannot claim maintenance from latter.

This is an appeal by the first defendant from a decree of the Additional Subordinate Judge of Mayuram granting maintenance at the rate of Rs. 15 per mensem to each of the first three plaintiffs and at Rs. 30 per mensem to fourth plaintiff, and a further payment to the plaintiffs of Rs. 10 per mensem towards their residence. The decree also directed the first defendant to pay plaintiffs past maintenance for a period of three years at the said rates. The properties described in the plaint ‘B ‘schedule were charged with the maintenance so decreed. The Suit was instituted in forma pauperis for partition and separate possession of the first plaintiff’s one-fifth share in the suit properties and for right of residence of the fourth plaintiff in item 1 of the plaint ‘A ‘schedule and for maintenance at Rs. 100 per mensem from 1st April, 1958, and for past and future maintenance at the same rate for the plaintiffs’. The plaintiff’s case was that the first defendant, who had a spouse living, married the fourth plaintiff on 9th May, 1951, at Mayuram. It is not in dispute that the fourth plaintiff is a Malayalee lady and that she has been a permanent resident of Travancore State. After the marriage, the first defendant took the fourth plaintiff to his native place at M. Adanur near Kattu-mannargudi, and lived there as husband and wife and begot through her plaintiffs 1 to 3, who are all minors. From 1953, however, misunderstandings arose as a result of, that is the plaint case, ill-treatment meted out by the first defendant to the fourth plaintiff. The last child, the third plaintiff, was born on 16th May, 1955, and the first defendant and the fourth plaintiff separated sometime in September, 1954. The first defendant resisted the suit and denied the status of the fourth plaintiff as also the other plaintiffs. He pleaded that he has married one Janaki Ammal in 1921, who gave birth to defendants 2 to 4 and died in 1956. There could, therefore, be no lawful marriage, in any case, of a second wife during the lifetime of Janaki Ammal. In fact, the first defendant went to the extent of suggesting that the fourth plaintiff was the wife of one Madhavan Nair and plaintiffs 1 to 3 were born to him. The properties described in Schedule A and C to the plaint, according to the first defendant, had been bequeathed by one Balarama Reddiar for charitable purposes and the properties covered by plaint ‘B ‘Schedule alone are his self-acquisitions. The first defendant asserted that, in the circumstances, the plaintiffs had no cause of action either for partition and separate possession or for maintenance.

The Additional Subordinate Judge framed appropriate issues and found that the marriage pleaded by the fourth plaintiff was true but invalid in law, because of the provisions of the Madras Hindu (Bigamy Prevention and Divorce) Act, 1949, that plaintiffs 1 to 3 were the children of the first defendant born during the wedlock with the fourth plaintiff and that the plaintiffs were entitled to maintenance, past and future. The Subordinate Judge also found that the plaint ‘A ‘and ‘C ‘schedule properties were trust properties not answerable to the claims of the plaintiffs and that the ‘B ‘schedule properties were the self-aquisitions of the first defendant. Nevertheless, he determined the quantum of maintenance on the basis of the income from, and the extent of, the entire properties in the three schedules.

In our view, the decree of the learned Subordinate Judge is correct except in regard to the maintenance, past and future, decreed in favour of the fourth plaintiff. Before us, no attempt was made by learned Counsel for the first defendant to contend that as a matter of fact there was no marriage at all and that the finding of the Court below in this regard is in anywise erroneous. But his contention is that the fourth plaintiff’s marriage with the first defendant having been found to be invalid as a bigamous one, the Court below was not justified