Vishwanath vs Kamla Devi

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J

The defendant/husband is the appellant, who aggrieved by the judgment and decree dated 6.4.2021, passed by the learned Principal Judge, Family Court, Hamirpur, whereby the suit of the plaintiff/wife was partly decreed and maintenance @ Rs.5000/­ per month was awarded in her favour w.e.f. 25.6.2014 till her lifetime, has filed the instant appeal.

2 The parties shall be referred to as the "plaintiff" and "defendant".

3 The plaintiff filed a suit for recovery of arrears of past maintenance of Rs.1,20,000/­ @ Rs.10,000/­ per month w.e.f. 25.6.2014 to 25.6.2015 and future maintenance at the same rate with a prayer to create charge over the land of the defendant comprised in Khata No.91, Khatauni No.91, Khasra Nos. 107, 173, 420, 462, 478, 483, 491, 521, 694, 698 and 786 Kita 11 measuring 7K­10M, as per jamabandi for the year 2005­06, situated in Tika Dhangu, Mouza Ugialta, Tehsil and District Hamirpur, H.P. and consequential relief of permanent prohibitory injunction for restraining the defendant from alienating the suit land was also claimed.

4 The suit was resisted and contested by the defendant by filing written statement, wherein preliminary objections qua maintainability, cause of action, locus standi, estoppel were taken and dismissal of the suit was prayed for.

5 Learned Family Court, after framing the issues and recording the evidence of the parties, vide judgment and decree dated 6.4.2021 partly decreed the suit of the plaintiff, as aforesaid, constraining the defendant to file the instant appeal.

6 We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the records of the case carefully.

7 One of the main contentions raised by the defendant is that the order of maintenance could have been passed in favour of the plaintiff only with effect from the date of judgment and not from the date of institution of the proceedings.

8 One of us (Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan) while adjudicating Cr.MMO Nos. 51 and 52 of 2016, titled as Rajnish Singh Chaudhary versus Dr. Purnima Thapar and Anr., decided on 23.05.2017, has held as under:­

As regards the order of maintenance being enforced from the date of the application, it is more than settled that the order of maintenance has normally to be awarded from the date of application and only under the compelling circumstances, can the order of grant of maintenance be postponed to a later date.

9 Similar reiteration of law can be found in a recent judgment dated 18.8.2021 rendered by one of us (Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan) in Cr.MMO Nos. 182/2020, titled as Surat Singh vs. Sharda.

10 At this stage, it would be fruitful to refer to following observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Bhuwan Mohan Singh vs. Meena and others (2015) 6 SCC 353:­

"16. In the present case, as we find, there was enormous delay in disposal of the proceeding under Section 125 of the Code and most of the time the husband had taken adjournments and sometimes the court dealt with the matter showing total laxity. The wife sustained herself as far as she could in that state for a period of nine years. The circumstances, in our considered opinion, required grant of maintenance from the date of application and by so granting the High Court has not committed any legal infirmity. Hence, we concur with the order of the High Court. However, we direct, as prayed by the learned counsel for the appellant, that he may be allowed to pay the arrears along with the maintenance awarded at present in a phased manner. The learned counsel for the respondents did not object to such an arrangement being made. In view of the aforesaid, we direct that while paying the maintenance as fixed by the learned Family Court Judge per month by 5th of each succeeding month, the arrears shall be paid in a proportionate manner within a period of three years from today."

11 In view of the aforesaid exposition of law, contention of the defendant with regard to the date of grant of maintenance sans merit and is accordingly rejected.

12 The other contention raised by the petitioner is regarding maintainability of the suit itself on the ground that the plaintiff has already been getting Rs.600/­ per month in another proceedings initiated by her under Section 127 Cr.P.C. and, therefore, the suit itself was not maintainable.

13 Even this contention is equally without merit. Firstly no such contention was raised before the learned Family Court and that apart, meagre amount of maintenance of Rs.600/­ per month cannot be termed to be a bounty so as to debar the plaintiff for grant of maintenance.

14 The cumulative effect of the discussion above is that the judgment and decree passed by the learned Family Court below is legal and proper one. No illegality, irregularity or perversity can be found in the same.

15 Consequently, the instant appeal being devoid of any merit is dismissed, so also the pending application(s), if any, leaving the parties to bear their own costs.