Appeal by husband challenging Family Court's maintenance order was dismissed. Court held appeal was defective and filed in delay, indicating husband's malicious intent given his assets. Direction issued for recovery of arrears.
Direction to recover entire arrears of maintenance and ensure regular payment to the wife through coercive steps.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
Miscellaneous Appeal No.718 of 2012
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Nawal Kishore Singh son of Sri Gaya Singh resident of Village Pachamba, P.S. Muffasil Begusarai, District Begusarai
.... .... Appellant/s
Versus
Nirmal Devi @ Nirmala Devi wife of Nawal Kishore Singh resident of Village Pachamba, P.S. Muffasil Begusarai, District Begusarai
.... .... Respondent/s
=========================================================== Appearance :
For the Appellant/s :
For the Respondent/s :
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CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE V.N. SINHA and HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE AHSANUDDIN AMANULLAH
ORAL JUDGMENT
(Per: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE V.N. SINHA) Date: 15-04-2015
Husband is the appellant herein. He has challenged the judgment dated 26.07.2011 passed by the Principal Judge, Family Court, Begusarai in Maintenance Case No. 81M of 2006 whereunder after considering the case of the parties, learned Principal Judge, Family Court found that the applicant-wife was neglected by her husband and not provided any maintenance. The Principal Judge,
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Family Court also found that she had no source of income and she is unable to maintain herself. The Principal Judge, Family Court while discussing point number III in the impugned judgment found that her husband has 20 bighas of land and a fleet of 9-10 buses. He also found after considering the evidence led by the parties in paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 that the wife had three children and for their maintenance directed the husband opposite party to pay Rs. 1800/- per month to the wife from the date of filing of the case. Appellant husband challenged the said order by filing this appeal on 05.10.2012, that is, after the husband was directed to deposit arrears of maintenance amount as per impugned order until 13.09.2012. The appeal was filed defective. While filing the appeal the second copy of the brief was not even appended for the use by the Companion Judge. There is delay of more than one year in filing the appeal yet limitation petition was not filed along with the memo of appeal. The defects noticed by the stamp reporter were placed before the Lawazima Board on 20.03.2013 when none appeared on behalf of the appellant. Again the matter was placed before the Registrar General on 24.09.2014 even then the defects were not removed. Today also learned counsel for the appellant prayed for one week time to remove the defects. We refused such prayer after perusal of the order and taking note of the conduct of the appellant we are satisfied that appellant only wants to harass his wife for no reason
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at all when from the finding recorded by the court below we are satisfied that the wife is suffering as she has no independent source of income and she is on the verge of starvation.
(V.N. Sinha, J)
(Ahsanuddin Amanullah, J)
Anjani/-
U T
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the appeal filed by the husband challenging the maintenance order should be allowed despite procedural defects and delay.
Whether the husband's non-payment of maintenance and attempt to delay appeal indicate malicious intent.
Whether coercive steps should be taken to recover arrears and ensure regular payment of maintenance.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Nawal Kishore Singh
Nirmal Devi
V.N. Sinha
Ahsanuddin Amanullah
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
