PRIYANKA ROY Vs. SUBHANKAR GHOSH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner-wife has challenged an order, whereby the petitioner's application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act for alimony pendente lite has been rejected.

(2.) It is fairly submitted by learned counsel for the petitioner that both parties are enrolled advocates. However, the petitionerwife, allegedly due to pressure of her matrimonial family, could not pick up legal practice and instead pursued her academics and has obtained a masters degree in law. It is submitted that the trial court proceeded on a premise that the petitioner-wife suppressed her income and her educational qualification and dismissed the alimony application on such score, which is not in consonance with settled law. In support of her argument, learned counsel for the petitioner cites a Division Bench judgment of this Court, reported at (Chitra Sengupta vs. Dhruba Jyoti Sengupta, 1988 AIR(Cal) 98), where although both the spouses were working, it was held that, the husband had special knowledge of his income under Section 106 of the Evidence Act and that it would be for the husband to disclose his income and the court was entitled to presume against him and to accept allegation of the wife in the event of non-disclosure of the income of the husband.

(3.) However, in the reported judgment, there was immense difference in the incomes of these spouses. The husband was working in a bank in United Kingdom, whereas the wife was working as a clerk in India, on which premises the aforesaid ratio was arrived at.