MAMATA DEBNATH Vs. MOHANLAL DEBNATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this civil revision petition, the petitioner has called in question the order dated 17.5.01 passed by the learned Addl. District Judge, West Tripura, Agartala (Court No. 2) in Civil Misc. Case No. 291 of 98 (arising out of TS (Divorce) No. 15 of 98) allowing partly her prayer for maintenance pendente lite under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act (for short, 'the Act') only for paltry amount of Rs. 1,000/- against her claim of Rs. 3,000/- per month from her estranged husband.

(2.) The short facts giving rise to the present proceeding originate from a matrimonial dispute between the husband and the wife which culminated into a divorce proceeding instituted by the husband, the respondent herein. In the said proceeding registered as T.S. (Divorce) No. 15/98 in the court of learned Addl. District Judge, West Tripura, Agartala, he sketched the background of the discord within a short period after their marriage on 11.12.96. He is a teacher in a senior basic school under the State Government. It is his allegation that soon after the marriage she proposed him to live separately from other members of his family consisting of his old aged mother, helpless sister deserted by her husband and elder brother with wife and three daughters. His refusal to the said proposal soured the matrimonial relation prompting her to treat him with cruelty in the form of refusal to co-habit and indecent and cruel treatment toother family members. When the bitterness was gradually getting momentum, the mother of the petitioner-wife visited the respondent- husband's house and with their permission took her to her parents' house and since then she did not come back to the marital tie. On the part of the husband to bring her back having been failed, he sent a lawyer's notice on 21.1.98 which was sternly replied by her through her lawyer on 6.2.98. He further alleged that on 31.1.98 and 2.2.98 her two brothers went to the school where he was serving and threatened to physically assault him. All facts taken together damaged the conjugal relation and eventually he filed the Divorce suit on the ground of wilful withdrawal from the marital tie and cruelty.

(3.) During pendency of the said proceeding, the petitioner herein filed a petition for maintenance pendente lite under Section 24 of the Act seeking a direction to the respondent-husband to pay her monthly maintenance of Rs.3,000/- and a further sum of Rs. 15,000/- towards expenses of the proceeding. She claimed that her husband was earning Rs. 9,000/- per month as a regular teacher in the graduate scale and from other income from agricultural lands. This prayer was, how- ever, contested by the respondent-husband on several grounds narrated in the objection petition. In para 5 of the objection petition, the statement of the petitioner as recorded is that he was earning only Rs. 3,000/- per month to support a large family and, there- fore, he was not in a position to pay any amount of maintenance. It is his specific stand, as she had wilfully withdrawn from the marital tie and as all his attempts to bring her back were foiled by her stubbornly, she was not entitled to claim any maintenance from him. He denied her statement that he was earning extra amount from his paddy land apart from his salary as Asst. Teacher under the Education department.