In summary proceedings under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, strict proof of marriage is not required to establish the entitlement to maintenance.

JUDGMENT :

B.K. Behera, J. - Loved by the opposite party and made to conceive for his sexual lust and then subjected by him to a forced abortion on the false pretext that she would be cured of the bysteric fits she was suffering from by the application of tablets and the forlorn by him, having fixed his eyes on another lady but ultimately married to the opposite party on February 1, 1979, the Shripanchami Day, according to law and customs governing the parties and deserted about a fortnight thereafter and left alone in the house of her husband who, with his father, left the house with the belongings and stayed elsewhere for which the Petitioner, unable to maintain herself, took shelter in the house of her parents, the Petitioner has now come to this Court for relief against the judicial order passed by the Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate, Angul, dismissing her claim for maintenance u/s 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the 'Code') as the married and deserted wife having no means to maintain herself on the ground of lack of legal and technical proof of marriage and the ceremonies thereto required by Hindu Law and in particular, for failure to prove the rites and ceremonies including Saptapathi as required by the proviso (2) to Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act. While Mr. B.B. Ratha, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner, has urged that strict proof of the marriage, which had been established on the evidence, was not to be, but had been insisted upon in a summary proceeding of this nature, Mr. P.K. Misra, the learned Counsel for the opposite party, has submitted that in the absence of proof of marriage with the ceremonies thereto and desertion the learned Magistrate was not legally wrong in dismissing the claim.

2. Sitting as I do in a Court of revision, normally the jurisdiction of this Court is to be exercised only in exceptional cases when there is a glaring defect in the procedure or there is a manifest error on a point of law which has consequently resulted in flagrant miscarriage of justice, as laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of State of Orissa v. Nakula Sahu and Ors. 47 (1979) C.L.T 624 (S.C.), referring to and relying on the principles laid down in two earlier decisions in the case of Amar Chand Agarwalla Vs. Shanti Bose and Another, etc., and Akalu Ahir and Ors. v. Kamdeo Ram 1973 S.C.D. 639, but having heard the learned Counsel for both the sides and perused the evidence, oral and documentary, on which reliance had been placed by the parties to the proceeding, I find, for the reasons to follow, that it would be just, legal, reasonable and proper to interfere with the impugned order based on technicalities and founded on inconsequential discrepancies in the testimony of the Petitioner and her witnesses including the priest, the barber and the drummer, besides the relations, as according to me, to maintain the order in the face of the clear and consistent evidence from the side of the Petitioner regarding her marriage to and desertion and neglect by the opposite party would amount to failure of justice.

3. Examining herself as P.W. 7, the Petitioner had testified vividly as to how the opposite party, having impregnated her and subjected her to a forced abortion by the application of tablets, left her and diverted his attention towards another lady with a proposal to marry her and as to how she brought this matter to the notice at the respectable persons of the locality, by presenting an application (Ext. 1), before whom the opposite party refused to marry her and the persons intervened and as to how she reported the matter at the Jarpada Police Station for which the opposite party and his father were called to the police station where they agreed that the opposite party would marry her. She had also deposed about the marriage which took place at about 8 p.m. on the Shripanchami Day with the performance of the ceremonies to the marriage including Saptapadi and about her being