KAILASH PRASAD, J.

( 1 ) THIS revision has been filed by Ram Singh against the order of a Magistrate directing him to pay Rs.- 50/- per month to Smt. Ramsri, as maintenance under Section 488, Cr. P. C.

( 2 ) SMT. Ramsri is a legally wedded wife of the applicant. She made an application under Section 488, Cr. P. C. , against Ram Singh claiming a monthly allowance for her maintenance. She founded her application on the allegations that her husband, Ram Singh had developed illicit intimacy with the wife of her brother and when she objected to it, her husband turned her out of the house. Thereafter Ram Singh married the woman with whom he had developed illicit intimacy and that woman was living with Ram Singh. Smt. Ramsri also alleged that her husband was a man of suffcient means.

( 3 ) RAM Singh denied that another woman was living with him and pleaded that Smt. Ramsri was herself unwilling to come and live with him and so she was not entitled to any maintenance allowance.

( 4 ) THE Magistrate, after examining the evidence produced by the parties, found that Ram Singh had kept another woman and had turned out Smt. Ramsri. The Magistrate further found that Smt. Ramsri was, in the circumstances, justified to refuse to go and live with Ram Singh. The magistrate was further satisfied that Ram Singh had sufficient means. He, therefore, ordered ram Singh to pay an allowance of Rs. 507- per month to Smt. Ramsri.

( 5 ) AGGRIEVED by this order, Ram Singh filed a revision before the Sessions Judge. The Sessions judge rejected it. Ram Singh has, therefore, come up in revision to this Court. The main contention of the applicant is that the Magistrate had no Jurisdiction to entertain the application of Smt. Ramsri and direct the applicant to pay maintenance to her. The learned counsel for the applicant has made a three-pronged attack on the jurisdiction of the Magistrate. Firstly, he canvassed that a Hindu wife was given a right of maintenance under Section 18 of the Hindu adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, and that right was enforceable in a Civil Court. The relief of maintenance to a Hindu wife, therefore, could not be given by a Criminal Court. In support of this argument the learned counsel placed reliance upon Bikram Singh v. Sudarsan Singh, AIR 1961 All 150, where it was held that the combined effect of Sections 9 and 19 read with Section 4 of the Hindu Marriage Act is, that the District Court has the exclusive jurisdiction ta decide a suit for restitution of conjugal rights where the parties are Hindus and a Munsif has no jurisdiction to try it.

( 6 ) THIS decision has no direct bearing on the question involved in the instant case. Under the hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the forum to which petitions for restitution of conjugal rights by a hindu wife or husband are to be presented, has been specified to be the District Court. Section 19 in fact enjoins that every petition under the Act, including, of course, the petition for restitution of conjugal rights must be presented to the District Court within the local limits of whose ordinary civil jurisdiction the marriage was solemnised or the husband and wife reside or last resided together. This necessarily implied that the jurisdiction of any other civil Court, to entertain a petition for restitution of conjugal rights, was intended to be excluded by the legislature. In the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, no forum has been prescribed for entertaining applications for maintenance. In fact the Act is silent as to the Court, where the application for maintenance may be moved. As the right of maintenance is of a civil nature, the jurisdiction of a Court to entertain a claim for maintenance will have to be determined with reference to the provisions of C. P. C. The right of maintenance under Section 488, Cr. P. C. is a special right given under the Code. The mere fact that similar analogous remedy is available under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act in a Civil Court, does not take awa

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