The language of Section 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, should be liberally construed, and a woman who has been made to go through a mock marriage and lose her maidenhood under the belief that she was lawfully wedded should be treated as a wife for the purpose of making an application for permanent alimony and maintenance under Section 25, even if the marriage was void ipso jure.

1. After a marriage between the parties had been annulled on the wifes petition under Section 11 read with clause (1) of Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (hereinafter briefly referred to as the Act) on the ground that the husband had a spouse living at the time of the said marriage, the lady aggrieved (respondent in this appeal) made an application for permanent alimony and maintenance under Section 25 of the Act. She has been granted a maintenance allowance of Rs. 25/- per month by the court of first instance. The offending or the offended male has come in appeal to this Court.

2. There is no dispute as regards the rate or quantum of the maintenance allowance and considering the high prices prevailing these days, this allowance would hardly enable the respondent to subsist on starvation level. The only grievance made by the appellant, therefore, is that the marriage was void ipso jure, from this very inception and that the respondent had never acquired the status of a wife to give her the right to make an application under Section 25 of the Act.

3. The parties had lived together as husband and wife for more than a year after the mock marriage or the sham ceremony and no children had fortunately been born from the wedlock. When the respondent came to know that the appellant was already married and that his wife was alive, she promptly applied for the annulment of the marriage. On the material now before me, it is not possible to say how far the appellant had been held responsible for any deception or suppression of material facts from the respondent before she was induced to go through that sham ceremony or mock marriage. Even if the respondent could be said to have gone through a marriage ceremony with full knowledge about the appellants live wife, it is obvious that she has been robbed of her maidenhood and the fact that she had promptly asked for the annulment of this mock marriage and that she was granted relief by the court may suggest that she was not trying to take advantage of her own wrong or disability within the meaning of S. 23(1)(a) of the Act.

4. The main argument of Shri Rajinder Krishan Aggarwal, the learned counsel for the appellant, is that the marriage being void ab initio, the parties never acquired the legal status of the wife or the husband within the meaning of Section 25(1) of the Act and that the respondent could not, therefore, make an application for permanent alimony or maintenance under that section. On first impression the argument strikes one as very appealing and the restricted interpretation sought to be put on the phraseology of this section had been accepted as correct in a few rulings relied upon by the appellants counsel. The better view which may appear to have found favour with the majority of High Courts, however, is that the Act has not been very carefully drafted and that the language of Section 25 has to be liberally construed. Even if the marriage was void ipso jure, the lady had been made to go through a mock marriage and to lose her maidenhood under the belief brought out by false pretences that she was a lawfully wedded wife. The children born from such a living together or commensality are treated as legitimate for certain purposes in view of the provisions of Section 16 of the Act and they have valid claims against the couple who brought them into the world as if the couple were their lawfully wedded parents. The children have all valid claims against their parents and the mock ceremony is supposed to have brought about a marriage which is annulled by the decree granted by the Court under Section 11 of the Act. Section 11 and 12 make a distinction between void and voidable marriages but the decree of nullity that follows in either case confers the same rights on the children born from this living together under a false belief about the validity of the marriage. The tie between the parties is, therefore, treated as a valid marriage for certain limited purposes an