Ujjal Kumar Shil vs The State Of West Bengal & Anr
2021 Latest Caselaw 459 Cal

Form No. J(2)

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction Appellate Side

Present:

The Hon'ble Justice Jay Sengupta

CRR 2884 of 2019 with CRAN 381 of 2020

Ujjal Kumar Shil Vs.

The State of West Bengal & Anr.

For the Petitioner           :      Mr. Ayan Bhattacharyya
                                    Mr. Kunal Ganguly

For the opposite party No.2 :       Mr. Purnashish Roy

Heard on:                         : 22nd January 2021

Judgment on :                     : 22nd January 2021


The Court:

This is an application challenging an order dated 08.08.2019 passed by

the learned Judicial Magistrate, 3rd Court, Bishnupur at Bankura in Misc. Case

No. 44/18, R 47/18, thereby directing payment of interim maintenance

allowance to the wife and the child at the rate of Rs 5,000/- and Rs.. 3000/-

per month, respectively from the date of application.

Affidavit of service filed on behalf of the petitioner is taken on record.

Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits as

follows. Before the order portion, it was recorded by the learned Magistrate in

the impugned order that the order will take effect immediately from 'today'.

Inspite of this, the learned Magistrate awarded maintenance allowance to be

paid from the date of the application. The two directions are contradictory to

each other. It is settled law that if maintenance allowance is directed to be

paid from the date of application, some reasons are required to be recorded

for the same. The sums awarded are too high for the petitioner to pay.

Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the opposite party / wife

submits as follows. The petitioner is a doctor and is an R.M.O. at a

government hospital. The petitioner earns substantial sums of money and also

has landed property. The sums of maintenance awarded are very reasonable

considering the standard of living of the petitioner and the opposite party. In

fact, the petitioner is not paying any maintenance allowance.

I have heard the submissions of the learned advocates appearing on

behalf of the petitioner and the opposite party no. 2 and have perused the

revision petition.

It appears that the petitioner is a doctor by profession and has

substantial earnings, even if one does not go into the question of him having

landed property, at this stage. The sums awarded by the learned Magistrate

are not at all excessive when compared with the earnings and the social

standing of the petitioner.

That the order was to take effect from 'today' was a rather redundant

observations, especially when juxtaposed with a clear direction that the

interim maintenance allowance was to be paid from the date of application.

In any event, in Rajnesh vs. Neha and Another, 2020 SCC Online

903, the Hon'ble Apex Court has held that maintenance allowance under

Section 125 of the Code is required to be paid from the date of application and

not from the date of the order.

In view of the above, I do not find any reason to interfere with the

impugned order.

Accordingly, the revisional application is dismissed.

The connected application is also disposed of.

However, there shall be no order as to costs.

Learned Magistrate shall dispose of the main application under Section

125 of the Code as expeditiously as possible and shall not be swayed by the

observations made in this order, which were only meant for deciding this

revision.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order may be supplied to the

parties expeditiously, if applied for.

(Jay Sengupta,J.)

SB