Under any customary or personal law applicable to parties, the purpose of the payment 'under any customary or personal law' must be to obviate destitution of the divorcee and to provide her with wherewithal to maintain herself. The whole scheme of s. 127(3)(b) is manifestly to recognise the substitute maintenance arrangement by lump sum payment organised by the custom of the community or the personal law of the parties. There must be a rational relation between the sum so paid and its potential as provision for main-tenance; to interpret otherwise is to stultify the project. Law is dynamic and its meaning cannot be pedantic but purposeful, Bai Tahira v. A.C. Hussain Fiddali Chathia, (1979) 2 SCC 316: AIR 1979 SC 362 (365). [Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, s. 127(3)(b)]
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