IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.1620 of 2008 VIJAY KUMAR @ VIJAY KUMAR SRIVASTAVA Versus SANGEETA SRIVASTAVA With C.R. No. 1885 of 2008 SANGEETA SRIVASTAVA Versus VIJAY KUMAR @ VIJAY KUMAR SRIVASTAVA ----------- 3 03.12.2008 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the opposite party. Pursuant to the previous order of this Court dated 23.09.2008 both the husband-Vijay Kumar @ Vijay Kumar Srivastava and wife-Sangeeta Srivastava are present before this Court. They in their statement before this Court have conveyed mutual distrust against each other. The wife submits that ever since 1996 when she was married she had hardly been given even teething period for improving relationship and the husband came out with some serious allegation pertaining to her child bearing capacity that was absolutely shocking and when she and her parents reacted to the same, she was ill treated and deserted for almost last ten years. It is in there circumstances that wife had to remain stationed with her parents for more than last ten years and the resultant frustration led to institution of criminal cases by both the sides. She has however shown inclination to restore her conjugal life with her husband and be with him provided she is treated with dignity and respect by her husband and his other family members. - 2 - The husband too has his own woes and has come out with an equally heart rendering story. He submits that having lost his father at an early age when he had to pick up a job for supporting his mother, his deserted elder sister having three children, he had expected that his wife would at least extend a co-operative attitude. Unfortunately, this could not happen not materialize and when he had genuine reasons to question the physical capacity of his wife, the wife and the family members instead of getting it clarified, came out with criminal case with baseless allegations of cruelty torture and demand of dowry in which the husband petitioner along with his family members were convicted by the trial Court and an appeal arising out of aforementioned judgment of conviction is pending before District and Sessions Judge, Muzaffarpur in Criminal Appeal No. 64 of 2006. The husband, therefore, would submit that even if he wants to restore his relationship with his wife and would definitely like to do away with all the litigations either civil or criminal, it is the vindictive attitude of the wife which is working against the restoration of conjugal right. The allegations and counter allegations apart, the parties after detailed discussion for more than an hour have ultimately agreed to restore their conjugal life on a clean slate and in the light of such agreed terms and conditions between them, this Court would issue following directions, namely :- (a) The wife will go to the house of the husband on 12th of December, 2008 and for this purpose it is the husband - 3 - who will go to the house of his wife. The brother of the wife Sri Sunil Kumar Sinha, undertakes before this Court that when the petitioner-husband will visit of his house, he will be treated well by all the family members and none of them would stand in the way of the wife joining with the petitioner in her conjugal life in any manner. Thus the wife will leave her place where she is residing on 12th of December, 2008 for residing with the husband at his place of posting at Farbisganj. (b) Once the wife is taken to Farbisganj it is the husband who assures that not only she will be treated well and given her all due dignity and neither his mother nor his elder sister nor their children will cause any impediment in his fresh venture of living together with his wife. (c) The husband i.e. the petitioner further undertakes that he would bestow love and affection towards his wife. The wife in turn has also given assurance that she too would not misbehave in any manner with the husband and will have all respect for the mother of the husband and sympathy for the elder sister of the husband who with her children has to stay with her husband under compulsion only because she has her own problems in her married life. - 4 - (d) After a period of three months is completed and the husband and the wife having lived together peacefully, they would jointly approach initially the appellate Court where the appeal of the husband and his family members against the order of conviction is pending by filing an application under Section 320 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking leave to withdraw the prosecution and compounding the offence. (e) The appellate Court after recording such terms and conditions reduced in the joint compromise petition to be filed by the wife and the husband along with other family members will drop the proceedings of the criminal appeal by way of compounding of the offence. (f) After the aforementioned criminal case is withdrawn the parties will file a joint compromise petition before the Family Court, Muzaffarpur seeking to drop the case filed by the wife claiming maintenance and the family court having recorded the compromise will adjourn the proceedings initially for six months whereafter if the Family Court on querry from them is satisfied that the compromise has been meaningfully acted upon, would pass an order for dropping the proceedings of maintenance case by suspending the - 5 - operation of the impugned order till further order. (g) Till such order is passed by the Family Court in the maintenance case, the husband petitioner will keep on depositing the amount as directed by the impugned order which however will not be encashed by the wife for the present but would remain her security amount which would become payable to her only in the event of failure of this compromise as mentioned above or if there would be no recurrence of any dispute between the parties in next one year. The husband in this regard will deposit the monthly amount in the Court which shall not be permitted to be withdrawn by the wife till an application is filed by the wife in terms of Section 127 Cr.P.C. before the Family Court or an appropriate order is passed by this Court. (h) The parties would be also at liberty to move this court by filing miscellaneous application for any clarification/modification in this order or for revival of this case. With the aforementioned observations and directions both the Civil Revision applications are disposed of. Bibhash (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)