JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:— Social justice is not constitutional claptrap but fighting faith which enlivens legislative texts with militant meaning. The points pressed in the Special Leave Petition, which are negative, illustrate the functional relevance of social justice as an aid to statutory interpretation.

2. The conjugal tribulations of Mrs. Veena, the respondent, who hopefully married Capt. Kaushal, the petitioner, and bore two young children by him, form the tragic backdrop to this case. The wife claimed that although her husband was affluent and once affectionate, his romantic tenderness turned into flagallant tantrums after he took to the skies as pilot in the Indian Airlines Corporation. Desertion, cruelty and breakup of family followed, that sombre scenerio which, in its traumatic frequency, flaring up even into macabre episodes, consternates our urban societies. The offspring of the young wedlock were not only two vernal innocents but two dismal litigations - one for divorce, by the husband, hurling charges of adultery, and the other for maintenance, by the wife, flinging charges of affluent cruelty and diversion of affection after the Airlines assignment. These are vers