This is an application to revise an order made by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Ariyalur dismissing an application under section 489 of the Code of Criminal Procedure filed by the petitioner for cancellation of an order of maintenance that bad been passed in M.C. No. 40 of 1944. In M.C. No. 40 of 1944, the petitioner was directed to pay maintenance to bis wife, who was the petitioner in that petition and who is the respondent here. A revision application was filed against that order and when that application came up for hearing in this Court on 5th February, 1945, it was represented by the petitioner that the case had been compromised. The respondent’s advocate then mentioned to the Court that he had not heard about it and he took time to verify the information. On 7th February, 1945, it was reported by both parties that the husband and wife had resumed cohabitation and on that ground the petition was not pressed and was eventually dismissed. No specific orders were however then passed regarding the order of maintenance which had been passed in M.C. No. 40 of 1944. It would appear that as reported then to this Court the respondent rejoined the petitioner and lived together, according to the petitioner, for six months. Subsequently, however on account of differences that arose again, the respondent left the petitioner’s house and claimed the maintenance awarded in M.C. No. 40 of 1944 to be continued. That occasioned the filing of the application under section 489 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by the petitioner, for the cancellation of the maintenance order. The learned Magistrate dismissed that petition on grounds which appear to me to be wholly untenable.

It is unnecessary to canvass those grounds as the matter is covered by direct authority. It was held by the learned Chief Justice and Mockett, J., in Venkayya v. Raghavamma1 that a decree obtained by a Hindu wife against her husband for maintenance becomes annulled by reason of subsequent resumption of cohabitation and is not merely suspended during such period of resumption. The learned Chief Justice in his judgment reviewed the Indian as well as the English precedents on the question of alimony and held that by returning to her husband the wife became disentitled to claim maintenance against him and the decree which she had obtained must be regarded in the circumstances as having become ineffective. It was observed that by going back to her husband the wife restored the position to what it was when they were married. In dealing with the repercussion of this principle on the provisions of the Indian Criminal Procedure Code the learned Chief Justice stated that he could see no difference in principle between an order passed under section 488 of that Code and an order under the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1878, or the English Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895. He pointed but that if the principle stated by Lord Elden in Bateman v. Ross2 was to be applied, there can be no question of the suspension of the order; the order goes entirely. Mockett, J., in concurring with this view pointed out that the view taken by Curgenven, J., in Kanagammal v. Pandara Nadar3 was not in conformity with the well-settled principles. The learned Chief Justice also referred to this decision of Curgenven, J., and said that the decision ran directly counter to the principle embodied in the judgment in Haddon v. Haddon4. The position thus is that when once after the passing of an order of maintenance under section 488, the husband and wife have resumed co-habitation, the order becomes automatically ineffective and unenforceable. No formal cancellation of that order appears to be necessary. If therefore there was neglect or refusal on the part of the husband subsequently, that would furnish a ground for the wife to make a fresh application, but she would not be entitled to claim the payment of maintenance on the strength of the order passed before the resumption of co-habitation. T