The husband has a legal obligation to maintain his wife and children, regardless of the wife's income, and interim maintenance is provisional, subject to final determination.

JUDGMENT :

Mr. Sumeet Goel, J.:- Present revision petition has been preferred against the order dated 09.05.2024 passed by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Rupnagar (hereinafter to be referred as the ‘concerned Family Court’) praying for setting-aside/modification of the said order. Vide the impugned order; the respondents (herein) have been awarded interim maintenance at the rate of Rs.12,000/- per month (i.e. Rs.8,000/- per month to respondent No.1-wife and Rs.4,000/- per month to respondent No.2-minor daughter) to be paid by the petitioner (herein) from the date of the filing of the application alongwith litigation expenses of Rs.7,000/-.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner has iterated that the learned Family Court, while determining the quantum of interim maintenance, has not taken into consideration the inability of the petitioner to pay the excessive amount, given his current financial condition. Learned counsel has further iterated that the petitioner-husband is suffering from a severe skin disease namely ‘Psoriasis’ and hence is unable to earn anything. It has been further iterated by learned counsel that the wife (respondent No.1 herein) is gainfully employed and is earning sufficiently so as to maintain herself and the child born out of the wedlock. Learned counsel for the petitioner-husband has further submitted that the wife (respondent No.1 herein) is in-fact earning more than him. Learned counsel has further submitted that the respondent No.1-wife has purchased property jointly with her mother which shows that she has sufficient source of earning. On these grounds, setting-aside of the impugned order has been prayed for.

3. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents has argued that the learned Family Court has rightly allowed the application seeking interim maintenance as the respondent-wife does not have any source of income to maintain herself and her minor daughter. Furthermore, the Family Court has determined the quantum of maintenance based on the calculation of the income of the petitioner; consideration of the expenditure incurred for the education of respondent No.2 (minor daughter) as also taken due consideration of the relevant facts and circumstances of the case. Thus, it has been prayed that the present petition be dismissed.

4. I have heard learned counsel for the rival parties and have perused the available record.

5. It would be apposite to refer herein to a judgment passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court titled as Rajnesh vs. Neha & Anr., 2021(2) SCC 324; relevant whereof reads as under:-

“II Payment of interim Maintenance

1. The proviso to Section 24 of the HMA (inserted vide Act 49 of 2001 w.e.f. 24.09.2001), and the third proviso to Section 125 Cr.P.C., 1973 (inserted vide Act 50 of 2001 w.e.f. 24.09.2001) provide that the proceedings for interim maintenance, shall as far as possible, be disposed of within 60 days’ from the date of service of notice on the contesting spouse. Despite the statutory provisions granting a time-bound period for disposal of proceedings for interim maintenance, we find that application remain pending for several years in most of the cases. The delays are caused by various factors, such as tremendous docket pressure on the Family Courts, repetitive adjournments sought by parties, enormous time taken for completion of pleadings at the interim stage itself, etc. Pendency of applications for maintenance at the interim stage for several years defeats the very object of the legislation.

2. At present, the issue of interim maintenance is decided on the basis of pleadings, where some amount of guess-work or rough estimation takes place, so as to make a prima facie assessment of the amount to be awarded. It’s often seen that both parties submit scanty material, do not disclose the correct details, and suppress vital information, which makes it difficult for the Family Courts to make an objective assessment for grant of interim maintenance. While there is a tendency on the part