The court emphasized the importance of expeditious disposal of matrimonial petitions and the need for genuine evidence in assessing the income of the parties involved.

PRATIBHA RANI, J.

CM No.2782/2016

1. For the reasons stated in the application 86 days’ delay in filing the appeal is condoned.

2. Application is disposed of.

MAT.APP.(F.C.) 11/2016

1. Despite the maintenance amount being enhanced from Rs.5000/- to Rs.7500/- per month with the take home salary of the respondent/husband to be only Rs.7433/- per month, (as per the salary slip furnishing by him) the appellant/wife is still not satisfied and approached this Court for enhancement of the maintenance amount to Rs.25,000/- per month.

2. The learned Judge, Family Court has also made provisions for the future increase in this very order by recording that every third year there shall be an increase of Rs.500/- per month in the maintenance amount awarded to her.

3. Admitted case of the parties is that their marriage was solemnised on September 30, 1998 as per Hindu rites and customs. No child was born out of this wedlock.

4. For the purpose of disposal of this appeal, suffice it to note that on June 03, 2005 the respondent/husband filed a petition seeking dissolution of marriage under Section 13(1)(ia) of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The appellant/wife filed an application under Section 24 of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 which was disposed of by the learned ADJ on November 30, 2008 awarding Rs.5,000/- per month as maintenance to the appellant/wife and litigation expenses of Rs.10,000/-. For the last more than eleven years the divorce petition is pending before the learned Judge, Family Court. It appears that there is no possibility of same being disposed of in near future and that may be the reasons provision has been made by the learned Judge, Family Court for periodical increase in the maintenance amount instead of concentrating on expeditious disposal of the divorce petition.

5. The appellant/wife is claiming the income of her husband to Rs.55,000/- which fact cannot be established from any material on record.

6. Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act contemplates a summary inquiry and not a trial at length. A bare reading of the Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 makes the object and the intent of the Section clear. This provision has been enacted to enable the husband or the wife as the case may be, who has no independent source of income for his or her support as well to incur necessary expenses to contest the litigation, can claim maintenance pendente lite so that proceedings may be continued without any hardship on his/her part. The benefits granted under this Section are only temporary in nature.

7. In the impugned order, the learned Judge, Family Court has noted the income of the non-applicant i.e. the respondent/husband to be as under:

‘The present income of the non-applicant as per the salary slips for the month of October, 2014 to March, 2015 has been reflected as Rs.10,665/- (after deductions of EPF, ESI and Loan as 1040/-, 187/- and 2000/- = Rs.3227/-). The home take salary of the petitioner has been shown as Rs.7433/-. The salary certificate is issued from Multiplex Corporation in which organization he was working when the earlier maintenance order was passed.

......................During his cross-examination the non-applicant admitted that even while working with the employer he had been skipping the office for teaching purposes and earning therefrom. It indicates that non-applicant has the capacity to earn through tuitions in the extra time available with him. His income is therefrom computed as not less than Rs.15,000/- pm and therefore the applicant is entitled to Rs.7500/- pm with the date of the application till pendentlite and for the future maintenance, the applicant is held entitled to an increase of Rs.500/- pm after every third year which means that her maintenance in September, 2018 would be Rs.8000/- and September 2021 the same would be Rs.8500/- and so on.’

8. It is not a case where the respondent/husband is running some business and concealing his true income. The deductions made from his salary on account of E