The court dismissed a criminal petition filed under Section 482 CrPC seeking to quash lower court orders rejecting a maintenance claim. The judgment held that the lower courts did not commit any error in finding the allegations of harassment improbable and allowed no interference with their concurrent findings.
Criminal Petition No.2935 of 2006 is dismissed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A.GOPAL REDDY
CRIMINAL PETITION No.2935 of 2006
DT.23.07.2010
G.Padmaja …Petitioner V. G.Gokul and another … Respondents The Court made the following:
HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A.GOPAL REDDY
CRIMINAL PETITION No.2935 of 2006
ORDER:-
Petitioner/wife filed this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to quash the orders passed by I Additional District & Sessions Judge, Ongole, dated 07.11.2005, in dismissing Crl.R.P.No.2 of 2004 filed by her, confirming the order, dated 20.12.2003, passed by Additional Munsif Magistrate, Chirala in M.C.No.47 of 2002.
Petitioner Nos.1 and 2 in the M.C., who are the wife and son of the respondent/husband, filed the above M.C. stating that petitioner No.1 was subjected to cruelty in multiple ways and sexual harassment by the relatives of her husband in the absence of her husband. Therefore, she has to compulsorily stay away from the respondent/husband and hence, they are entitled to maintenance from him.
On behalf of the petitioners, petitioner No.1 herself examined as P.W.1 and one more witness as P.W.2 and marked Ex.P1. On behalf of the respondent, he himself examined as R.W.1 and marked Exs.R1 to R14.
The learned Additional Munsif Magistrate, Chirala after taking into consideration the oral and documentary evidence, observed that the evidence let in by petitioner No.1 that the relatives of her husband sexually harassed her, seems to be improbable and if the said allegations were really happened, disclosing the same would be nothing but pouring mud by a person on his own face and no husband on earth would keep quite when such incidents were happened against his wife. It was further held that the evidence of the respondent would show that the parents and sister of petitioner No.1 stayed along with them. But petitioner No.1 denied the same and she admitted that her parents were shown as dependants of the respondent and her father took treatment at Hyderabad and that the respondent provided medical facilities to her parents upto 1996. Further, the respondent established that he himself ran away from the family due to fear of his wife and that his wife and her mother used to insist him to earn money through illegal means and she used to abuse him in filthy language and when he did not listen to their words, she used to inform to I.G. and C.I. of police, who are her relatives and they used to send the constables to their house to threaten him. Further, P.W.2 also admitted that the respondent sent D.D. for a sum of Rs.24,500/- and Rs.7,500/- to his wife, but he deposed that he do not know whether the said amounts were sent for purchasing gold. It was
further held that petitioner No.1 failed to prove the harassment and she herself withdrawn from the company of the husband and hence, she is not entitled to maintenance.
Holding so, the learned Magistrate dismissed the petition regarding petitioner No.1 and granted maintenance to petitioner No.1 at Rs.1,000/- per month. The same has been confirmed by I Additional District & Sessions Judge, Ongole in the revision filed by the petitioner in Crl.R.P.No.2 of 2004, dated 07.11.2005.
Concurrent findings recorded by the Courts below cannot be interfered by this Court in exercise of inherent jurisdiction, unless the findings so recorded are perverse and not based on evidence.
It is well settled that this Court in exercise of the inherent jurisdiction cannot act as a second court of appeal and reappraise the entire evidence.
Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is dismissed.
_______________ A. GOPAL REDDY, J
23rd July 2010 lmv
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC can be exercised to quash lower court orders dismissing a maintenance petition.
Whether the findings of the lower courts regarding lack of evidence for harassment are perverse.
Whether the petitioner is entitled to maintenance given the lower courts' findings of improbability of her allegations.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
G.Padmaja
G.Gokul
A. GOPAL REDDY
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
