JUDGMENT :

Sumeet Goel, J.

Vide this common order, two separate criminal revision petitions, bearing numbers CRR(F) 856 of 2024; and CRR(F) 859 of 2024 filed against, a common order dated 29.05.2024 passed by Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Ludhiana, in case bearing CIS No.MNT/175 of 2023, are being disposed of.

2. The parties in the present case are referred to as husband and wife, in order to ward off any confusion, while appreciating the facts of the case, in view of the interplay of titles, in both the abovementioned criminal revisions having been filed against the common order.

3. Facts germane to the adjudication of the present case are that the marriage between the parties was performed on 19.04.2014. Out of their wedlock, a male child was born on 09.04.2015. In view of the differences and disputes having arisen between the husband and wife, the wife filed a petition under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C. in the Family Court, Ludhiana seeking maintenance for herself and the minor son. The Learned Family Court, Ludhiana, vide impugned order dated 29.05.2024, while disposing of the application filed by the wife for grant of interim maintenance, awarded a sum of Rs.30,000/- each to the wife and minor son, to be paid by the husband, as interim maintenance during the pendency of the petition under Section 125 of Cr.P.C.

4. The wife along with the minor son has filed criminal revision petition CRR(F)-856-2024 for enhancement of the interim maintenance so awarded vide the impugned order dated 29.05.2024.

Whereas, the husband has filed CRR(F)-859-2024 for setting aside of the said impugned order.

5. While challenging the legality of the impugned order it has been argued by the learned counsel for husband that the order dated 29.05.2024 passed by the learned Family Court, granting interim maintenance to the wife and minor son, is not sustainable and hence is liable to be set aside on the ground of it being a non-speaking order. Reliance in this regard has been placed on a judgment in the case of Kranti Associates Pvt. Ltd. vs. Masood Ahmed Khan, 2010 (9) SCC 496, to contend that the impugned order being a non-speaking one is liable to be set aside.

5.1 While placing reliance on the judgments titled as Monu Songra vs Pinki, 2016(4) RCR Crl. 804; Smt. Renu Gautam vs. S. Naveen Sharma, 2021(1) CCC 581, S. Rehana Sultana @ Rehana Begum vs B. Mohammed Ghouse, 2017(1) RCR Civil, 551; it has been further contended that since the wife has not come to the Court with clean hands hence she is not entitled to any relief of maintenance. It is submitted that the wife is not only guilty of concealment of material facts but also intentionally and with the purpose of playing fraud has deceitfully misrepresented material facts in her affidavit of Assets and Liabilities. It has been contended that in her affidavit, she has deposed that she does not have any FDR in her name, whereas she is having a joint FDR of Rs. 50 lacs; that she has omitted to disclose the fact that she was earning a handsome amount and had an independent source of income of her own. The learned counsel for the husband has pressed into service the Income Tax Returns of the wife to substantiate the argument that she had an income of arround Rs.2.5 lacs per months before her marriage and thereafter, she stop filing Income Tax Returns. Learned counsel has argued that in view of the concealment and deceitful misrepresentation on behalf of wife in her Affidavit of Assets and Disclosure, she ought not to have been granted any maintenance.

5.2 It has been further contended that the Income Tax Returns of the husband for the assessment year 2013-14 should have been read in conjunction with the Income Tax Returns of succeeding years which clearly depict that there has been substantial reduction in the income of the husband. The learned Family Court while deciding the quantum of interim maintenance should have paid regard to the factum of reduced income of the husband. While stressing that the