RUCHIKA KANJALE Vs. MAJOR PARVIN KANJALE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this petition, the petitioner has challenged the propriety and validity of order dated 17th November, 2006 passed by the Matrimonial Court while disposing of application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act made by the petitioner.

(2.) THE husband in this case was working as a Major in the army. The wife had applied to the army officials for maintenance and as per the Army act and Rules, she was getting maintenance allowance @27. 5% (22% for her and 5. 5% for the son) per month. She initially did not make an application to the matrimonial Court for maintenance however, later on when she made application under Section 24 of Hindu Marriage Act, for grant of maintenance, the Court awarded Rs. 7,000/- p. m. maintenance to her. The Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the maintenance awarded by the Trial Court to her was even less than what she was getting from the army authorities and the order passed by the learned ADJ was bad in law. The learned ADJ did not exercise her jurisdiction properly and did not grant maintenance as per settled principles of law. The counsel relied upon Annurita Vohra v. Sandeep Vohra 110 (2004) DLT 546 wherein this Court in a matter of grant of maintenance observed that Court would be extremely loath to restrict maintenance to 1/5th of the husband's income where this would be insufficient for the wife to live in a manner commensurate with her husband's status or similar to the lifestyle enjoyed by her before the marital severance. The Court observed that in its view a satisfactory approach would be to divide the family resources cake in two portions to the husband since he has to incur extra expenses in the course of making his earning, and one share each to other members. He further relied upon Alok Kumar Jain v. Purnima Jain 140 (2007) DLT 476 and S. S. Bindra v. Tarvinder Kaur 112 (2004) DLT 813.

(3.) THE Counsel for the respondent on the other hand stated that the amount to be awarded to the wife has to be determined after considering the entire facts and circumstances and each case has to be considered on its own facts. He submitted that in this case the husband/respondent was having a 71 years old mother, who was not able to sustain and maintain herself. The respondent could not keep such an old mother with him, since his call of duties require him to be at different places as per his posting. So, he has to maintain two houses, one at Satara (Maharashtra) where his mother lives and other at the place where he himself lives and since his mother is aged 71 years, he needs considerable amount for her maintenance and medical requirements. He further argued that the wife in this case was a qualified teacher; she was M. A. B. Ed. and was deliberately imposing unemployment upon herself so as to claim maintenance from the husband.