JUDGMENT
Arunachalam, J.
This petition was heard in part on 17.3.1993 The only ground urged by the petitioner’s Counsel was that the impugned proceedings under Section 125 Cr.P.C. could not have been initiated by B Rajagopal, father and guardian of the first respondent and grandfather of the minor second respondent. I directed the petitioner’s Counsel to cite authorities, if any, for this proposition, for which he replied that there was none. Anyhow, he pleaded for a week’s time to again search for authorities. Today learned Counsel represented that, to his knowledge, there was no authority for the said proposition.
1. Petitioner is admittedly the husband of the first respondent and father of second respondent, his minor daughter. Petitioner was not successful in M.C. No. 14 of 1990 on the file of Judicial Magistrate No. V. Madurai, wherein proceedings were initiated under Section 125 Cr.P.C. by the father of the first respondent since the first respondent was mentally deranged and was not in a position to prefer a petition by herself on her behalf and on behalf of her minor daughter. Petitioner preferred Crl. R.C. No. 2 of 1992 before the Principal Sessions Judge, Madurai, challenging the correctness of the order of the Enquiring Magistrate directing the petitioner to pay a monthly maintenance of Rs. 300/- to the first respondent and Rs. 200/- to the second respondent. First revisional Court concurred with the finding of fact recorded by the Enquiring Magistrate and dismissed the revision.
2. Petitioner, who is barred from preferring a second revision, has chosen to invoke the inherent powers of this Court to have the maintenance award set aside. As a matter of course, inherent powers of this Court cannot be exercised, especially when there is prohibition for a second revision, unless this Court is satisfied in rarest of rare cases that there has been miscarriage of justice. Facts placed before the Enquiring Magistrate disclose that the petitioner and the first respondent entered into matrimony on 16.7.1979 and the second respondent was born out of that marriage in or about 1980. It is the case of the wife that in or about 1982 on transfer to Sivakasi, petitioner insisted on her obtaining 10 sbvereigns of gold jewellery as dowry and further make arrangements to provide him with a job. On that demand, petitioner drove her out of the matrimonial home. Shocked wife thereafter became mentally deranged. Petitioner had wilfully neglected his wife and daughter and did not choose to maintain them thereafter. The case of the petitioner before the Enquiring Magistrate was that the wife had voluntarily left the matrimonial home to stay with her parents and in a panchayat he had already paid a lumpsum of Rs. 10,000/- in full quite of the maintenance for both the respondents. Both the Courts below have held on the basis of the evidence of the Medical Officer, P.W. 3, coupled with the version of P.Ws. 1 and 2, that the first respondent had become mentally deranged only after her having been thrown out of the matrimonial home. Plea of the petitioner that he was duped into matrimony, suppressing the fact of mental derangement of his wife, was not accepted by both the Courts below and to my mind correctly, on the evidence available on record. The Court belows has taken note of the specific fact that prior to 1982-83 first respondent could not have been incapacitated, since she was working as a Teacher in a school, prior to matrimony. Factually wilful neglect was found and maintenance to each of the respondents, as stated earlier, was ordered. The Court below also took note of the law that mere receipt of lumpsum payment, which will not be commensurate with the maintenance that the wife and daughter could normally be entitled to, cannot stand in the way of the wife and daughter pleading for a regular monthly maintenance award.
3. When evidence is available that the wife was not only ill-treated by her husband but dowry demand was also made, his inhuman behaviour is so patent. Further, the case of the wife through her father, that she was sent away from the matrimonial home, only on that score, has also been accepted. There is no gainsaying of the fact that only because of the conduct of the husband the wife had become mentally deranged and became incapacitated. The behaviour of the husband is nothing short of wilful neglect and the wife and the minor daughter have a right to be maintained by the husband, who is under a legal as well as moral obligation to do so.
4. Section 125 Cr.P.C. does not contain any bar which would prohibit the father and then custodian of his mentally deranged daughter, who became so incapacitated, because of the cruelty inflicted by her husband, to move the Court of the first instance pleading for a maintenance allowance for his daughter and grand-daughter. Even in the petition for maintenance, it has been specifically mentioned that the father was initiating action as next friend and guardian of his incapacitated daughter and his minor granddaughter. There was no dispute by the petitioner of the incapacity of his wife due to mental derangement.
5. The object of a proceeding under Section 125, Cr.P.C. is not to punish the husband or the father, as the case may be, for his wilful neglect, but is intended to prevent vagrancy by compelling him to maintain his wife and minor daughter, who are unable to maintain themselves. The Section was introduced in the Criminal Procedure Code as a quick and effective remedy and obviously as a welfare measure with a social purpose behind it, which cannot be overlooked by Courts on a hypertechnical legal ground, especially when the section itself does not prohibit such a course. Liberal interpretation is bound to be adopted. So long as there is no prohibition in law and when specifically the father has claimed that he was constrained to initiate action under Section 125, Cr.P.C. due to mental derangement of his daughter as a result of the cruelty inflicted on her by her husband, I find no merit in the submission that the Enquiring Magistrate had no jurisdiction to entertain proceedings under Section 125, Cr.P.C. In respect of initiation of prosecutions for offences against marriage (Chapter XX I.P.C.) there is bar for taking cognizance, except upon a complaint made by some person aggrieved of the offence (Section 198, Cr.P.C.). Even then an exception has been carved out, in eases of lunacy, idiocy, sickness or infirmity etc., leading to inability make a complaint, in which contingency, with the leave of the Court, persons mentioned in Section 198(1)(c), Cr.P.C. could institute the complaint. Such a bar does not exist for initiation of proceedings under Section 125, Cr.P.C. The Enquiring Court must be held to have correctly exercised jurisdiction on factually being satisfied, on the material placed before it that the wife was incapacitated, which fact was not seriously disputed by the petitioner, needing her next friend and guardian father, to set the law in motion. The findings recorded by both the Courts below are unassailable. This petition shall stand dismissed.