PARTAP SINGH Vs. KULWANT KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will dispose of Criminal Revision No. 947 of 1988. Partap Singh Petitioner married Smt. Kulwant Kaur private respondent No. 1 on 19.4.1981. The parties have been living separately from each other since December,1984. The said respondent was serving as a Nursing Principles in Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla. She retired with usual retirement benefits on 31.3.1987. She has settled down in her own house at mohali which she purchased from the Punjab Housing Board. She filed the present petition alleging that the respondent had a huge income, was spending about Rs. 7,0 0/per day and owned a factory and other property in Delhi. The learned Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Kharar, fixed Rs. 300/- per month as maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by order dated 30.7.1988 with effect from 11.5.198. The respondent filed the present revision petition against the said order. The stand of the husband is that the wife was getting a pension of Rs. 900/- which had been raised to Rs. 1200/- per month. She had completed the payment instalment of the house at Mohali in which she was living and which was worth Rs. 2,50,000/- according to the prevailing prices.

(2.) THE question which falls for consideration is whether the petitioner on the facts admitted by her can be deemed to a person unable to maintain herself within the meaning of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is not disputed that the wife retired as Principal of a Nursing College with full retirement benefits. She must have got refund of provident fund and gratuity. According to her own showing, she was getting a pension of Rs. 700/- per month which is revised by the Government from time to time. Further according to the wife, she was living in the house purchased from housing board. Faced with these facts, the learned counsel for the wife contended that the wife was suffering from various ailments and she needed a substantial amount of money for her treatment. Having regard to the plain language used un Section 125, it does not appear that the provision is meant for covering medical expenses or extra-ordinary expenses incurred by a person. It is to avoid vagrancy that limited provision in which maintenance can be fixed upto 500/- per month, has been made in the Code of Criminal Proceedur. I do not think that any case for fixing maintenance was made out. The order in question is, therefore set aside. The petition under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is dismissed.