Judgement

CHANDRA REDDY, J. : -

The plaintiff in O. S. 142/50 and defendant in O. S. 22 of 1951 on the file of the Subordinate Judges Court, Kakinada. is the appellant in both the appeals. The plaintiff in O. S. 142/ 1950 laid an action against her husband for recovery of maintenance, future at the rate of Rs. 4000/- per year and past at Rs. 2000/- per year for nine years, jewels weighing 50 tolas of gold and valued at Rs. 5000/- and for an account of her "Pasupu kumkuma" (pin-money) entrusted to her husband by her father after the marriage and for other incidental reliefs.

It was alleged in the plaint that the defendant induced the plaintiffs parents in December 1927 to give her in marriage to him on the representation that he had left off his first wife who was unfit for marital life, being sick, that they lived happily for some years and later on he brought back his first wife in breach of this assurance and began to neglect and ill-treat the plaintiff and ultimately drove her out of the house in the year 1940 after forcibly removing a gold chain and bangles from her which were presented to her by her parents at the time of her marriage.

The next day after the marriage, her father paid into the hands of the 1st defendant Rs. 8000/-by way of Pasupu Kumkum (Pin-money) for her with instructions to improve it and hand it over to her whenever so desired by her. The defendant failed to pay her this amount also with interest accruing thereon. The defendant in his written statement denied all these averments and his liability in regard to any of the heads and stated that the plaintiff left his house in his absence as he did not agree to take in adoption her sisters son whom she was bringing up for some time.

2. The defence prevailed with the trial court and all the issues were decided against the plaintiff. It preferred to believe the defence witnesses to those of the plaintiff, the oral evidence for the plaintiff being characterized as unsatisfactory and unreliable. He accordingly dismissed the plaintiffs suit and decreed the suit brought by the husband, the present defendant, for restitution of conjugal rights winch has given rise to No. 855 of 1953.

3-10. Aggrieved by these decrees, the wife has filed these appeals. In these appeals, all the conclusions of the Subordinate Judge are challenged. (After discussing the evidence, his Lordship, agreeing with the trial court, held that the story regarding the agreement to abandon the first wife and of ill-treatment and desertion was false, that both the wives lived amicably with the defendant till plaintiff left him for the reasons mentioned by him, that the plaintiff had not laid any foundation for her claim for the jewels and the Pin-money, His Lordship then proceeded : ). It follows that the suit was rightly dismissed. In the premises this appeal would have been dismissed but for a supervening event.

11. Pending the appeals, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956 was passed by the Indian Parliament. Under S. 18(2) of that statute a wife is entitled to live separately from her husband and claim maintenance on any of the grounds enumerated therein, such as if the husband has any other wife living.

The appellant invokes this provision for claiming maintenance on the ground that the respondents first wife is living. Though the Act was passed subsequent to the dismissal of the suit and this right was not available to the plaintiff at the time of the institution of the suit there can be little doubt that it can be applied to pending proceedings as the court should take into consideration the subsequent legislation which has altered the rights of the parties. Sub-section (1) of S. 18 governs a wife married before the commencement of this Act. Consequently the plaintiff could take advantage of this enactment notwithstanding that her marriage took place in 1927.

12. Mr. Kuppuswamy contends that subsection (2), clause (d) could confer a right only on the first wife to claim maintenance and that that section could not be availed of by the 2nd wife. His submission is that the words "if he has any other wife living" in clause (d) should be given restricted meaning. It should be confined to wives other than the last married one as otherwise it will lead to inconvenient results such as every one of the wives living separately would have to be awarded maintenance, while the husband is deprived of the company of each of the wives, he is compelled to maintain all of them.

This result is not in consonance with the accepted notions of Hindu Law and as such this could not have been within the contemplation of the Legislature, continues the learned counsel. It is urged that giving ordinary meaning to the language of a statute leads to manifest injustice, and hardship and a construction should be put upon it which avoids such results. Such words should be so construed as to bring them in line with the intendment of the enactment.

13. To bear out this proposition, Mr. Kuppuswamy relies on a passage in Maxwells Interpretation of Statutes (10th edition) at page 229 :

"Where the language of a statute, in its ordinary meaning and grammatical construction, leads to a manifest contradiction of the apparent purpose of the enactment, or to some inconvenience or absurdity, hardship or injustice, presumably not intended, a construction may be put upon it which modifies the meaning of the words, and even the structure of the sentence.

This may be done by departing from the rules of grammar, by giving an unusual meaning to particular words, by altering their collocation or by rejecting them altogether or by interpolating other words, under the influence no doubt of an irresistible conviction that the legislature could not possibly have intended what its words signify, and that the modifications thus made are mere corrections of careless language and really give the true meaning."

For the same purpose are cited Rex v. Ettridge 1909-2 KB 24 (A) and Norman v. Norman 1950-1 All ER 1082 (B). The question that posed itself in the first of the two cases was whether a court of appeal could pass a different sentence when the conviction was based on the accuseds plea of guilty. Section 4(3) of Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, enabled a court to quash the sentence passed at the trial and pass such other sentence in law by the verdict.

The point was that if a prisoner was convicted on his plea of guilty and not in consequence of being found guilty by the verdict of the jury whether it would fall within the ambit of sub-section. Darling J. who spoke for the Court repelled the contention that it should be confined only to cases of conviction by the verdict of the Jury as in his opinion the Parliament could not have intended that only those who could have been found guilty by the Jury should be allowed to appeal against the sentence.

The learned Judge thought that to confine the operation of that sub-section to cases of verdict by Jury would not give full effect to the intendment of the section, for passing of the sentence was not the act of the Jury as the sentence is fixed and awarded by the Judge and not the act of the Jury. It was in that context that he said :

We are of opinion that we may in reading this statute reject words, transpose them, or even imply words, if this be necessary to give effect to the intention and meaning of the Legislature."

14. 1950-1 All ER 1082 (B) does not carry the matter very farther. What was laid down there was that an application for continuation of payments within the meaning of S. 2(2) of the Married Womens Maintenance Act, 1949, was not confined to cases where the original order had not expired. It would make no meaning if the order to be continued under S. 2(2) was one which was actually in force and that the statute must be read so as to make sense and to remedy the mischief or fill the gap in the scheme of things in connection with the maintenance and education of children which already existed, observed Justice Hodson.

15. These various rules enunciated above are only aids in construing a statute properly and come into play when it appeared that the language employed does not bring out sufficiently the intentions of the Legislature. If the words are susceptible of two interpretations, they should be construed in a sense which is more in harmony with the intention of the Legislature, though it might be less correct grammatically.

The cardinal principle of interpretation of statutes is that, when enacted words are plain and capable of only one meaning effect should be given to them irrespective of the consequences that might flow from it. The court is not concerned with the Legislative policy, its only function being to construe the statute that is placed before it and not to legislate.

It has to look primarily to the language and give effect to it. If it is felt that a particular enactment causes hardship or inconvenience the Legislature must be approached for redress. See Emperor v. Benoari Lal, AIR 1945 PC 48 (C) and Ram Krishna v. Delhi State, (S) AIR 1956 SC 476 (D). In this context, a passage from the judgment in Rananjaya Singh v. Baijnath Singh 1954-2 Mad LJ 714 : (AIR 1954 SC 749) (E) is pertinent.

"The spirit of law may well be an elusive and unsafe guide and the supposed spirit can certainly not be given effect to in opposition to the plain language of the sections of the Act and the rules made thereunder. If all that can be said of these statutory provisions is that construed according to the ordinary, grammatical and natural meaning of their language they work injustice by placing the poorer candidates at a disadvantage the appeal must be to Parliament and not to this Court."

So it is our duty to construe the words in the ordinary sense when the language is clear and explicit and we cannot seek to limit their scope on the ground that they are not in conformity with the supposed intentions of the Legislature.

The words "any other wife living" in clause (d) of S. 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act must be given their ordinary meaning. They are words of wide connotation and include wives except the one claiming relief and cannot be limited to any particular wife. They do not contemplate any preference to the first wife. The only condition for any of the wives calling in aid of that section is that there should be another living wife.

16. Nor is there any force in the contention that a literal or grammatical construction is repugnant to the accepted notions of Hindu law. The concepts regarding the rights and liabilities of the husband in relation to his wife are not fixed and immutable. These notions are changing with the change in social conditions.

Society is not static and it keeps abreast of times. Indisputably, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act was passed to alter the law in respect of the rights of wives in a particular field. The Parliament has deliberately made a departure from existing law in that regard with a view to remedy what in its opinion are defects pertaining to that subject.

It is considerations of social conditions that have given rise to this change. It is therefore no use harping upon old notions and theories. Consequently, the submission on this topic is unacceptable and has to be rejected. It follows that the plaintiff could claim relief under the Act as the first wife is shown to be still alive.

17. It was next contended that the plaintiff having abandoned her husband could not with any justification ask to be maintained by her husband. She had forfeited that right before the Act came into force and the Act could not revive a right that had already been extinguished, argues the counsel for the respondent.

The answer to that is that when a wife quits her husband for no justifiable reasons but not for immoral purposes her right to be maintained is only suspended but not forfeited. It is always open to her to come back and claim to be maintained as her home is in her husbands house.

So long as she chooses to live apart from her husband without sufficient cause the right to be maintained is kept in abeyance. A separate living without justifiable cause but with no corrupt motives would not operate to extinguish that right of maintenance. Therefore, there is no question of the new enactment reviving the right. It was open to the wife to return to her husband before this enactment was passed though till then, her separate maintenance was suspended but without incurring any forfeiture.

This is a circumstance to be taken into account in fixing the amount of maintenance. A less liberal rate will be awarded where the wife leaves her husband without due cause. For these reasons, we hold that the plaintiff is entitled to live separately without forfeiting her right within the meaning of S. 18(2) of the Act. This view of ours gains support from Surampalli v. Surampalli ILR 31 Mad 338 (F), Vasuntharadevi v. Ramakrishna 1947-2 Mad LJ 544 : (AIR 1949 Mad 100) (G) and Dharmarao v. Venkatamahalakshmamma ILR 1947 Mad 387 : (AIR 1947 Mad 96) (H).

18. There remains the point whether the plaintiff could claim maintenance from the date she left her husband or from the date the Act came into force. This problem does not present any difficulty if it is remembered that prior to the Act a wife who had left the husband without sufficient excuse could not claim to be maintained separately and such a right is conferred by the new Act. Since that right accrues by virtue of the provisions of that Act, a suit for maintenance could be laid only after it came into force.

Its operation is only prospective though it brings within its scope marriages that took place prior to the Act. Therefore, the maintenance can be claimed only from the date the Act takes effect and not from the date the wife chooses to live separately from the husband. The Sub- ordinate Judge had not decided the question of quantum of maintenance in the view he took of the right of the plaintiff to get maintenance.

This matter has to be gone into by him. We think the proper course is to allow the appeal and remit it to the trial court for disposal on the quantum of maintenance. The appellant will have to pay the costs of the respondent in A. S. 900/52 as she has failed on the case she had laid before the trial court but partially succeeded here by reason of a supervening event, namely, the passing of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act.

19. A. S. 855/53 has to be allowed as the appellant can no longer be compelled to live with the husband in view of the provisions of the aforesaid Act which, we have held, applies to the appellant. No order as to costs in this appeal.

Order accordingly.