Order Respondent 1 is the wife and respondent 2 is the minor son of the petitioner. On a petition filed by them under section 125, Code of Criminal Procedure, the trial Magistrate ordered the petitioner to pay them monthly maintenance at the rate of Rs. 60. He challenged the order in an application for revision before the Sessions Court, Tellicherry but subject to reducing the maintenance of the first respondent to Rs. 40 and that of the second respondent to Rs. 30 the Sessions Judge confirmed the order. The petitioner seeks to quash the orders of the Courts below in this petition under section 482 of the Code in respect of the maintenance allowed to the first respondent, contending that her evidence on which they have proceeded provides no valid ground to award separate maintenance. 2. At the date of the petition the respondents were residing in the house of the first respondent's parents. In the course of the proceedings before the Magistrate, obviously in an attempt at reconciliation the first respondent (“the respondent” for brevity) went from her parental house and resided in the petitioner's house for sometime. She then returned to her parental house and the attempted reconciliation having failed, the trial of the petition was resumed. In the course of her evidence at the resumed hearing she explained why she left the petitioner's house., She stated that during this period the petitioner would not talk to her in spite of her attempt to talk with him, that he would not behave well towards her, or let her enter his room or sleep there and that when his mother interceded on her behalf the petitioner ignored her saying that she (the respondent) could complain to the Court. In the cross-examination she stated that if she approached the petitioner for talking he would ask her to get away without prattling. 3. The Courts below have accepted this evidence and concurred in holding that it evidences sufficient reason entitling the respondent to live apart and claim separate maintenance. In the cross-examination she stated that if she approached the petitioner for talking he would ask her to get away without prattling. 3. The Courts below have accepted this evidence and concurred in holding that it evidences sufficient reason entitling the respondent to live apart and claim separate maintenance. Counsel for the petitioner contested this view, arguing that the respondent had been getting food and shelter in his house; in other words she was being maintained by him in his House and that if her complaint was against the denial of cohabitation and the sharing of bed with him, as her evidence implies, that would not provide sufficient reason for leaving him for her parental house and founding a claim for separate maintenance under section 125. Counsel contended that the petitioner's obligation is only to maintain the respondent, as is clear from sub- section (1) of section 125 and that as he has not defaulted in that obligation, there was no foundation for the respondent's claim. On this premise, Counsel urged that the orders of the Court below are without jurisdiction and that despite their concurrence, they should be quashed. In support of his contention he relied upon Arunachala Asari v. Anandayammal1. 4. Ever since the respondent started living in her parents’ house the petitioner has been neglecting or refusing the maintain her but nevertheless she would not “be entitled to receive an allowance from her husband….if, without any sufficient reason, she refuses to live with her husband……”: sub- section (4) of section 125. The petitioner has offered to maintain her on condition of her living with him and despite her refusal to live with him, the Court can still order separate maintenance if, she has sufficient reason to live apart from him. The sole question for decision therefore is whether she is refusing to live with the petitioner without sufficient cause, for if she is, her claim must fail. The respondents’ dumb residence in the petitioner's house eating whatever food was offered to her is not living with the petitioner; indeed on the evidence it is the petitioner who was refusing to live with the respondent. He would not talk to her in spite of the advice of his mother and if talked to, he would dismiss the respondent unhusbandlike and again unhusbandlike would not let her enter his room or sleep there. He would not talk to her in spite of the advice of his mother and if talked to, he would dismiss the respondent unhusbandlike and again unhusbandlike would not let her enter his room or sleep there. He used to wave her away asking her not to prattle if she attempted to talk with him and to suggest that she could carry her complaint to the Court. This sort of existence can hardly be called life and if the respondent felt that she could not continue in this cold, and suffocating atmosphere and left for her parents’ house, it would be impossible to hold that her departure and separate residence were without sufficient reason. The petitioner obviously feels that the respondent is a human biped who needs only food and shelter but could be denied everything else including association and companianship. No wife can be compelled to submit to the indignity and icy neglect such as the petitioner has shown and to continue to suffer the ordeal of her animal existence in his house merely because of the food and shelter that is available there. The neglect is not the passing mood that might fellow a tiff, perhaps inevitable in married life; it is a deliberate and continuous conduct which has reduced the respondents’ life to a miserable plight. As I read the evidence, what the respondent complains against, as sought to be made out by Counsel, for the petitioner, is not the denial of co-habitation but the denial of conditions in which she could, live as a human being and wife. The petitioner's conduct was one of studied indifference and cruelty and I cannot countenance his insistence that the respondent submits to it with no remedy under section 125. The respondent has sufficient reason to live apart and the petitioner is bound to pay her separate maintenance. 5. The facts in Arunachala Asari v. Anandayammal1 are not fully stated; but it would appear that the wife refused the husband's offer to maintain her in a separate room of his house without associating with the other members of his family and the learned Judge (Burn, J.), hold that she had no sufficient grounds for this refusal. 5. The facts in Arunachala Asari v. Anandayammal1 are not fully stated; but it would appear that the wife refused the husband's offer to maintain her in a separate room of his house without associating with the other members of his family and the learned Judge (Burn, J.), hold that she had no sufficient grounds for this refusal. The learned Judge also observed that: “She cannot claim under section 488 , Criminal Procedure Code (of 1898), to be treated ‘as a wife’ she can only claim to be maintained on the scale appropriate to her station in life” and that “I cannot see that section 488, Criminal Procedure Code, has anything to do with ordinary conjugal rights; it deals with ‘maintenance’ only and I see no reason why maintenance should be supposed to include anything more than appropriate food, clothing and lodging”. The circumstances under which the wife sought separate maintenance are not quite clear and in so far as they are apparent, they are far different from the facts in the instant case. The decision is therefore distinguishable. If however it purports to lay down that the wife is bound to accept the food, clothing and lodging provided by the husband whatever be the conditions under which they are provided and whatever be the attitude of the husband to her, it would be difficult, with great respect, to agree with that view, particularly as it is in disharmony with the social conditions of to-day, considering that 47 years have rolled by since that decision. I find it impossible to hold, on the authority of Arunachala Asari v. Anandayammal1 that the life to which the respondent was subjected did not constitute sufficient reason to live away and claim separate maintenance from the petitioner. 6. The facts in the case appear to be nearer, the facts in an early Madras decision. Marakkal v. Kandappa Gounder.2. There a husband having two wives offered to maintain his first wife by allowing her to live in his house adding “that he would not live with her as a husband lives with his wife, but supply grain for her to cook her own food in his house and eat it separately”. Marakkal v. Kandappa Gounder.2. There a husband having two wives offered to maintain his first wife by allowing her to live in his house adding “that he would not live with her as a husband lives with his wife, but supply grain for her to cook her own food in his house and eat it separately”. A division Bench of the High Court held confirming the order of the Magistrate awarding her maintenance, that there was no sufficient offer to maintain the wife and that “the wife must, we think, be invited to live with the husband as husband and wife do, and the offer made must be an offer to maintain her as part of his jointly family”. The principle of the decision, does support the respondents’ prayer for separate maintenance. I dismiss the petition. M.C.M. ----- Petition dismissed.