ARIJIT PASAYAT, AFTAB ALAM
Chaturbhuj – Appellant
Versus
Sita Bai – Respondent
The court in this case did not categorically hold that the sine qua non for the grant of maintenance under Section 125 Cr.P.C. is that the wife must be unable to maintain herself and that there must be wilful neglect or refusal on the part of the husband. Instead, the court emphasized that the expression "unable to maintain herself" refers to the means available to the wife while she was living with her husband, and it does not include the efforts made by the wife after desertion to survive. Furthermore, the court noted that the essential condition is that the wife must be unable to maintain herself, and the existence of wilful neglect or refusal by the husband is also a necessary element for the maintenance order. The court observed that in the present case, these conditions were not satisfied, implying that the specific requirement of wilful neglect or refusal was not established.
JUDGMENT
Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.—
1.Leave granted.
2.Challenge in this appeal is to the order passed by a learned Single Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Indore Bench, dismissing the revision petition filed by the appellant in terms of Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short ‘Cr. P.C.’). The challenge before the High Court was to the order passed by learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Neemuch, M.P. as affirmed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Neemuch, M.P. The respondent had filed an application under Section 125 of Cr. P.C. claiming maintenance from the appellant. Undisputedly, the appellant and the respondent had entered into marital knot about four decades back and for more than two decades they were living separately. In the application it was claimed that she was unemployed and unable to maintain herself. Appellant had retired from the post of Assistant Director of Agriculture and was getting about Rs. 8,000/- as pension and a similar amount as house rent. Besides this, he was lending money to people on interest. The appellant claimed Rs.10,000/- as maintenance. The stand of the appellant was that the applicant was living in the house co
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