MR. JUSTICE S.RAVINDRA BHAT (OPEN COURT)

1. The present common judgment will dispose of two appeals one preferred by the wife (FAO 68/2013) and the other by husband (MAT. APP. (FC) 22/2013).

2. By the impugned order, the Family Court directed the payment of Rs. 50,000/- per month as pendente lite maintenance amount to the wife.

3. The brief facts are that the parties to the present litigation get married on 29.10.2006; a son Ivan Jason Sehmbey was born to them on 30.08.2008. It is not in dispute that the parties are living separately from 2009 and the wife filed proceedings for divorce under Section 13 (1) (ia)of the Hindu Marriage Act claiming that the husband had treated her with cruelty. She preferred an application for maintenance pendente lite under Section 24 of the Act on 8.10.2010.

4. In the application, the wife claimed maintenance at Rs. 100,000/- per month alleging that the husband was a man of considerable means; owner of a foundry worth Rupees 15 crores and owned ancestral residential property at G.T. Road, Goraya, (Punjab) and a flat at Central Park I, Sector 42, Gurgaon worth Rupees1.8 crores, from which, it was alleged, he was earning Rs. 60,000/- since Septe