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TMI Blog1978 (10) TMI 157X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... systems of the salutary objects sought to be served by the Legislature and when the beneficiaries are the weaker sections, like destitute women, this spirit of Art. 15(3) of the Constitution must belight the meaning of the Section. The Constitution is a pervasive omnipresence brooding over the meaning and transforming the values of every measure. So, s. 125 and sister clauses must receive a compassionate expansion of sense that the words used permit. The Brief Facts The respondent (husband) married the appellant (wife) as a second wife, way back in 1956, and a few years later had a son by her. 15 The initial warmth vanished and the jealousies of a triangular situation erupted, marring mutual affection. The respondent divorced the appella ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... refore ineligible for maintenance. The Magistrate who tried the petition for maintenance held that the appellant was a subsisting wife and awarded monthly maintenance of Rs. 300/- for the son and Rs. 400/- for the mother for their subsistence, taking due note of the fact that the cost of living in Bombay, where the parties lived, was high, and that the respondent had provided residential accommodation to the appellant. This order was challenged before the sessions Judge by the aggrieved husband, who on a strange view of the law that the court, under s. 125, had no jurisdication to consider whether the applicant was a wife, dismissed the petition in allowance of the appeal. The High Court deigned to bestow little attention on the matter a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... proof that the lady was not living separately by mutual consent. His next plea was that there must be proof of neglect to maintain to attract s.125 and his third contention was that there was a settlement by consent decree in 1962 whereby the mehar money had been paid and all claims adjusted, and so no claim for maintenance could survive. The third contention is apparently based upon contractual arrangement in the consent decree read with s. 127(3) (b) which reads: C (b) the woman has been divorced by her husband and that she has received, whether before or after the date of the said order, the whole of the sum which, under any customary or personal law applicable to the parties, was payable on such divorce cancel such order,- (i) in th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... neglect by husband or father. The magistrate's order proceeds on neglect to maintain; the sessions judge has spoken nothing to the contrary; and The High Court has not spoken at all. Moreover, the husband has not examined himself to prove that he has been giving allowances to the divorced wife. His case, on the contrary, is that she has forfeited her claim because of divorce and the consent decree. Obviously, he has no case of non-neglect. His plea is his right to ignore. So the basic condition of neglect to maintain is satisfied. In this generous jurisdiction, a broader perception and appreciation of the facts and their bearing must govern the verdict not chopping little logic or tinkering with burden of proof. The next submission i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d give up her soul ? The point must be clearly under stood that the scheme of the complex of provisions in Chapter IX has a social purpose. Ill-used wives and desparate divorcees shall not be driven to material and moral dereliction to seek sanctuary in the streets. This traumatic horror animates the amplitude of s.127. Where the husband, by customary payment at the time of divorce, has adequately provided for the divorce, a subsequent series of recurrent does is contra-indicated and the husband liberated. This is the teleological A interpretation, the sociological decoding of the text of s.127. The keynote thought is adequacy of payment which will take reasonable care of her maintenance. The payment of illusory amounts by way of customa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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