- (1.) A wife's suit for maintenance has been decreed by the Addl. District Judge, Ghazipur in her and daughter's favour which brings her husband in appeal here.
(2.) From time immemorial, the husband has been recognized as a bread earner of the family and Section 18 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, hereinafter called the 'Act' incorporates the said principle. It may be noted that unlike section, Section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code, the 'Act' recognizes only the husband as the maintainer of the family irrespective of the consideration whether the wife is able to maintain herself or not.
(3.) The only obstruction in granting of maintenance is provided in various sub- clauses of sub-clause (2) of Section 18 of the Act, which is as follows :- "(2) A Hindu wife shall be entitled to life separately from her husband without forfeiting her claim to maintenance :- (a) if he is guilty of desertion, that is to say, of abandoning her without reasonable cause and without her consent or against her wishes, or of willfully neglecting her; (b) if he has treated her with such cruelty as to cause a reasonable apprehension in her mind that it will be harmful or injurious to live with her husband; (c) if he is suffering from a virulent form of leprosy; (d) if he has any other wife living; (e) if he keeps a concubine in the same house in which his wife is living or habitually resides with a concubine elsewhere; (f) if he has ceased to be a Hindu by conversion to another religion; (g) if there is any other cause justifying her living separately.";