Venkatarama Aiyar, J.- This is an appeal against the order of Panchapakesa Ayyar, J., directing the appellant to pay to the first respondent a sum of Rs. 500 by way of interim maintenance pending the disposal of a suit on the Original Side of this Court. The first respondent in her plaint alleged that the appellant had married her in 1943 and that she continued to live with him for some time but that he latterly neglected her and did not maintain her and the relief prayed for is that the first defendant be directed to pay arrears of maintenance and also future maintenance at the rate of Rs. 500 a month. The plaintiff also filed an application for an award of interim maintenance during the pendency of the suit. The first defendant contested the claim. He denied he ever married the plaintiff and disputed his liability to pay any maintenance. The application for award of interim maintenance came up before Panchapakesa Ayyar, J. After taking some evidence, he properly declined to express any opinion on the merits of the case but directed that the first defendant should pay to the plaintiff a sum of Rs. 500 as interim maintenance pending the final disposal of the suit. It is against that order that the first defendant has preferred this appeal.

Mr. K. Rajah Ayyar, learned advocate for the appellant, contends that the Court had no jurisdiction to award interim maintenance in a case where the claim is contested. In Lakshmana Dora Varu v. Mallu Dora Varu1, the facts were that the plaintiff filed a suit to recover possession of certain properties or in the alternative for partition, and during the pendency of the suit, he made an application for the award of interim maintenance to him. The District Judge awarded Rs. 250 a month. In revision, Horwill, J., set aside that order on the ground that the Court had no jurisdiction to make such an order when the claim is in dispute. The learned Judge observed:

"In Maharaj Kumar Gopal Saran Narayan Singh v. Sita Debi2, a Divisional Bench of the Patna High Court held that a Court has no inherent power under section 151 to pass such an order. That case was very like the present, in that the plaintiff sued on a maintenance agreement, and only differed from it in that the defendant there did not admit that the plaintiff was entitled to anything.

The learned Judge also followed the decision of Jackson, J., in C.R.P. No. 1312 of 1930 where that Judge observed: “A Court cannot interfere with a private person’s property merely because he happens to be a defendant on behalf of another person merely because he happens to be a plaintiff. There is no inherent power in a Court to act without findings, so that if a matter is asserted by the plaintiff and denied by the defendant, the court cannot presume that the plaintiff’s allegations are true and give some interim relief pending disposal of the suit.”

The following observations of Sir Dawson Miller, C.J., in Gopal Saran Narayan v. Sita Debi1may be quoted:

“It seems to me that the only ground which would justify an order compelling the defendant to pay the annuity or a portion thereof to the plaintiff is that the defendant’s liability on the bonds has been established. That liability, however, cannot possibly be determined until the evidence is taken and the suit heard and decided. There appears to me to be no ground disclosed in this case, and certainly no authority has been cited before us to justify the learned Subordinate Judge in passing an order granting the plaintiff a portion of the relief claimed before the suit has been tried, and in the absence of any authority supporting such a contention, it seems to me that we ought not to allow the present order to stand. Section 151 of the Code saves the Court’s inherent power to make such orders as may be necessary for the ends of justice or to prevent abuse of the process of the Court, but I am not aware of any rule of law or equity, which requires, in the interests of justice, that a plaintiff suing to enforce

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