Reportable

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS.564-565 OF 2015

[Arising out of SLP (Crl.) Nos. 6380-6381 of 2014]

SHAMIMA FAROOQUI

... Appellant

Versus

SHAHID KHAN

... Respondent

J U D G M E N T

Dipak Misra, J.

Leave granted.

2.

When centuries old obstructions are removed, age old shackles

are either burnt or lost their force, the chains get rusted, and the

human endowments and virtues are not indifferently treated and

emphasis is laid on “free identity” and not on “annexed identity”, and

the women of today can gracefully and boldly assert their legal rights

and refuse to be tied down to the obscurant conservatism, and

further determined to ostracize the “principle of commodity”, and the

Digitally signed by

Chetan Kumar

Date: 2015.04.06

17:15:02 IST

Reason:

Signature Not Verified

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“barter system” to devoutly engage themselves in learning, criticizing

and professing certain principles with committed sensibility and

participating in all pertinent and concerned issues, there is no

warrant or justification or need to pave the innovative multi-avenues

which the law does not countenance or give its stamp of approval.

Chivalry, a perverse sense of human egotism, and clutching of feudal

megalomaniac ideas or for that matter, any kind of condescending

attitude have no room. They are bound to be sent to the ancient

woods, and in the new horizon people should proclaim their own

ideas and authority. They should be able to say that they are the

persons of modern age and they have the ideas of today’s “Bharat”.

Any other idea floated or any song sung in the invocation of male

chauvinism is the proposition of an alien, a total stranger – an

outsider. That is the truth in essentiality.

3.

The facts which are requisite to be stated for adjudication of

these appeals are that the appellant filed an application under

Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) contending,

inter alia, that she married Shahid Khan, the respondent herein, on

26.4.1992 and during her stay at the matrimonial home she was

prohibited from talking to others, and the husband not only

demanded a car from the family but also started harassing her. A

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time came when he sent her to the parental home where she was

compelled to stay for almost three months. The indifferent husband

did not come to take her back to the matrimonial home, but she

returned with the fond and firm hope that the bond of wedlock would

be sustained and cemented with love and peace but as the misfortune

would have it, the demand for the vehicle continued and the

harassment was used as a weapon for fulfilment of the demand. In

due course she came to learn that the husband had illicit relationship

with another woman and he wanted to marry her. Usual to sense of

human curiosity and wife’s right when she asked him she was

assaulted. The situation gradually worsened and it became

unbearable for her to stay at the matrimonial home. At that juncture,

she sought help of her parents who came and took her to the parental

home at Lucknow where she availed treatment. Being deserted and

ill-treated and, in a way, suffering from fear psychosis she took

shelter in the house of her parents and when all her hopes got

shattered for reunion, she filed an application for grant of

maintenance at the rate of Rs.4000/- per month on the foundation

that husband was working on the post of Nayak in the Army and

getting a salary of Rs.10,000/- approximately apart from other perks.

4.

The application for grant of maintenance was resisted with

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immense vigour by the husband disputing all the averments

pertaining to demand of dowry and harassment and further alleging

that he had already given divorce to her on 18.6.1997 and has also

paid the Mehar to her.

5.

A reply was filed to the same by wife asserting that