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Kuldip Kaur – Appellant
Versus
Surinder Singh – Respondent
Key Points: - The judgment distinguishes between enforcement mode (imprisonment) and actual recovery of arrears; imprisonment is not discharge of liability but a method to enforce payment. (!) (!) - Section 125(3) allows imprisonment for non-payment of maintenance, but the liability remains and arrears can be recovered even if the liable person is jailed. (!) (!) - The Court set aside a prior order that wiped out arrears due to imprisonment and held the arrears remain recoverable; maintained that future payments should continue and arrears can be realized. (!) (!) (!) - The case provides guidance on calculation and enforcement of monthly maintenance (Rs. 200 for wife and Rs. 75 for child) and directs continued payment with penalties for non-payment. (!) (!) - It emphasizes the purpose of maintenance to enable the wife and child to live, which cannot be satisfied merely by detaining the husband in jail. (!) - It requires a speaking order in revisional proceedings addressing the petitioner’s plight. (!) - The Act’s scheme (Chapter IX: 125-128) comprises adjudication, execution, and mode of enforcement of maintenance orders. (!)
JUDGMENT
THAKKAR,J.:— We have yet to come across a case of a wife wronged by her husband and a child wronged by his father who had to suffer also at the hands of the Court. For, while the Trial Magistrate has disposed of the matter in a very cursory manner taking a thoroughly untenable and unjust view, the High Court has rejected the Revisional Application summarily. Both the Courts have done so notwithstanding the fact that the point involved (whether detaining the husband in jail for failing to pay the arrears of maintenance would be tantamount to satisfaction of the order of maintenance passed in her favour even though the arrears of maintenance allowance remain unrecovered in fact) is not capable of being answered against the petitioner.
2. The Metropolitan Magistrate (Shri L. D. Malik) in his order dated July 4, 1981 recorded a clear finding that the husband was guilty of cruelty in the context of the demand for dowry. He observed :-
"I have heard the attorney for the petitioner and carefully examined the evidence produced by the petitioner and find that the evidence on record is sufficient to show that the petitioner was maltreated and neglected by the respondent. The evidence
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