JAGJIT SINGH GREWAL Vs. SHRIMATI GURDIAL KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Rule directed against the appellate order of the learned Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, affirming in revision petition payment of the sum of Rs. 150/- granted as maintenance allowance under Section 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to the respondent, Gurdial Kaur.

(2.) The petitioner, Jagjit Singh Grewal, who is an Assistant Garrison Engineer, was married to Gurdial Kaur respondent in 1927. They have three grown up issues of this marriage, two married daughters and a son, also married. According to the husband, the respondent wife did not come up to his standard or level in education or upbringing and he felt obliged on account of the exigencies of the Government service to contract the second marriage, this time with a Lady Doctor in 1914. In spite of the second marriage, Gurdial Kaur continued living with the petitioner. It is the case of both sides that the petitioner and the respondent lived together till 1960. The case of the respondent wife is that after the marriage of her son she went to live with the petitioner in village Narangwal, where the husband holds property, and after she had been given a beating and deserted by her husband she has been living alone. According to the husband, he is still prepared to live with the respondent who however insists on living apart and is being instigated in this design by the son of their marriage Chananpreet Singh, aided by Dr. Ranjit Singh, brother of the petitioner. In the application for maintenance under Section 488, Code of Criminal Procedure, the husband demurred on a variety of grounds. It was pleaded in the first place that the Court at Ludhiana where the application was filed had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition, the parties having last resided together in Ambala District, where he was posted. It was further pleaded that there was no right of maintenance as he was still prepared to keep his wife. The quantum of maintenance fixed by the Courts below at Rs. 150/- has been vigorously challenged, both here and in the Courts below.

(3.) As far as the question of jurisdiction is concerned, it would be well to mention that the matter was never raised before the learned Sessions Judge who has reached his findings on the right of the respondent to obtain maintenance and the sum of Rs. 150/- which had been granted to her by the Court of the trial Magistrate.