Maharaja Nadar vs Muthukani Ammal on 5 December, 1985
28. Mere diminution of physical comfort in her husband's house is not a cause justifying her to live away from her husband and claim separate maintenance. Vasuntharadevi v. Ramakrishna (1947) 2 Mad U 544: AIR 1949 Mad 100. Cruelty and abandonment are not the only grounds on which separate maintenance could be allowed to a wife. Separate maintenance can also be awarded when the husband for reasons of his own choses to put the wife away from him or the wife lives away from her husband for justifiable reasons. A wife is entitled to be maintained from her husband irrespective of his possession of any property and her right to maintenance is not lost, though curtailed to the barest necessaries, by her unchastity if she continues to live with the husband. If the wife has to live away from her husband for a just cause, as for instance, husband's virulent leprosy, his habitual cruelty or neglect endangering her health or personal safety, or his keeping a concubine in the house, or his desertion or refusal to maintain her, then she will be entitled to separate maintenance.