GHULAM MUHAMMAD Versus FAKIR MUHAMMAD

ORDER

1. ABDUL KADIR SHAIKH, J. ‑The petitioner Ghulam Muhammad has tied this application under section 491, Cr. P. C. praying that a direction be issued for the production of his sister Mst. Rahima who is said to be wrong fully detained by her husband Fakir Muhammad in Haji Nanak Village, Taluka Daur, District Nawabshah. Mst. Rahima was previously married to one Noor Muhammad, resident of Jacobabad, and has a son 3 years old from him. For reasons which have not been disclosed, Noor Muhammad divorced Mst. Rahima, and she was then given in marriage to Fakir Muhammad respondent. It is alleged that it was only after the marriage took place that Mst. Rahima came to know that her husband Fakir Muhammad had another wife and a son aged 4 years, but she "could not say anything in the matter, as such she kept silent and pulled on with the opponent No 1 (her husband)". By now, she has a son from Fakir Muhammad who is about six months old.

2. It is alleged that just two months after the marriage, Fakir Muhammad started maltreating his second‑wife, Mst. Rahima, "in various ways and made her to work in fields, cattle yards and corn grinding machine like a manual labourer; besides keeping her half straved and ill‑clad like slave girl." In June 1973, Mst. Rahima came to Karachi with her brother to attend a funeral in the family, and she refused to go back to her husband due to his cruelties and in this connection she signed a declaration before a Notary Public, Karachi on 12th June, 1973. After a few days, precisely on 7th July 1973 she, however, returned with her husband to live with him in his village as he promised "to keep and maintain her with love and affection at all times" according to the undertaking given in a Compromise deed executed that day. It is the complaint of the petitioner now that after Fakir Muhammad went back to his village, his attitude "worsened instead of improving", and Mst. Rahima has been compelled to break off with her relatives and she is again being ill‑treated like a slave girl.

3. Of late, a large number of cases such as this have been filed to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court under section 491, Cr. P. C., it is therefore necessary to emphasise certain aspects of the disputes of this kind. Under the social pattern prevailing in our country, it can be safely said that a girl's abode, after her marriage, is in the house of her husband. Disputes between the spouses, who under the solemn vow taken at the time of the wed lock, to live with each other for the lifetime of one another for better or a worse, are bound to occur several times in their lives. No doubt these disputes quite often lead to separations, but it is equally often, if not more so, that such separations are only temporary phases and these end in happy life‑long re‑unions. The disputes of this kind are normally settled by the relations of the parties and/or the elders of the family to which the parties belong, and all the time the attempts are made at the preservation of the marriage, rather than its destruction. Such attempts are to be made even as a requirement of law, if the dispute gives rise to litigation before the Family Court. The normal venue for settlement of the disputes regard ing matrimonial affairs is the Family Court of relevant jurisdiction, unless of course a criminal offence is also involved for which the aggrieved party chooses to seek the redress.

4. It is only obvious that this case essentially relates to a dispute regarding matrimonial affairs, it must therefore be laid before the Family Court o relevant jurisdiction, rather than before the High Court in its extraordinary jurisdiction under section 491, Code of Criminal Procedure. The allegations regarding wrongful confinement etc., if true, would also involve offences punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code, for which the normal venue is again the ordinary Criminal Court of the relevant jurisdiction. Recently we have held in the case of Imdad Hussain v. Noor Hassan and others (Cr. Misc. Application No. 87/1974) that in appropriate cases, the High Court may refuse to exercise its powers under section 491, Cr. P. C., even if available if the party can seek relief under the normal remedies provided by the law./81 We find this to be a fit case in which we would not like to interfere. The petition is, accordingly, dismissed in limine.

5. S. A. H. Petition dismissed.