*** vs Paramjit Kaur & Anr on 11 August, 2009

Crl. Misc. No. 21897-M of 2009                                     1

      IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
                     CHANDIGARH

                         Crl. Misc. No. 21897-M of 2009
                         Date of Decision: 11.8.2009
                               ***
Dalbir Singh
                                                                .. Petitioner
            Vs.

Paramjit Kaur & Anr.
                                                             .. Respondents


CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARVIND KUMAR.

Present:-   Mr. R.K. Arya, Advocate
            for the petitioner.
            ***

ARVIND KUMAR, J.

The petitioner is aggrieved with the orders passed by the Courts
below fixing the maintenance of the respondents. Though the trial Court
vide order dated 4.9.2008 allowed the maintenance to wife @ Rs.1000/- and
that of minor daughter to the tune of Rs.800/- per month from the date of
application, the learned Revisional Court below modified the amount of
maintenance to Rs.900/- and Rs.700/- respectively.

I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner and have gone
through the paper book carefully.

The relationship between the parties and their separation is not
in dispute. The whole case of the petitioner hinges upon a “Talaknama”
dated 19.5.2006, but both the Courts below discarded the same so as to deny
the maintenance amount to the respondents, because the said writing was
never followed up in any Court of law by the parties for obtaining decree of
legal separation. Further, the petitioner even after the said writing dated
19.5.2006 preferred a petition for restituion of conjugal right, which
falsifies his own case of the parties getting divorce with the intervention of
respectables, by way of writing dated 19.5.2006. Keeping in view the fact
that the provisions of Section 125 Cr.P.C. are beneficial one and have been
enacted to prevent neglected wife, children or the parents, as the case may
be, from the hands of starvation and vagrancy and from the point of view
Crl. Misc. No. 21897-M of 2009 2

that the petitioner-husband is a man of means, rightly fixed the maintenance
amount of the respondents. It cannot be said that the amount of Rs.900/- and
Rs.700/- per month respectively for the respondents is on higher side,
especially in the present scenario of high rise in the cost of living. By dint of
the impugned order, only a legal duty, which the petitioner has prima facie
failed to oblige, has been imposed. There is no illegality of perversity in the
impugned order. The petition is without any merit and is accordingly
dismissed.

(ARVIND KUMAR)
JUDGE
August 11,2009
Jiten