Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Munmun Mondal vs State Of West Bengal & Anr on 28 November, 2022
28.11. 2022
item No.12
n.b.
ct. no. 551 CRR 1984 of 2017
with
IA No. CRAN 1 of 2018(Old No.1933 of 2018)
Munmun Mondal
Vs.
State of West Bengal & Anr.
Mr. Soumyajit Das Mahapatra,
Ms. Oindrila Ghosh,
....for the petitioners.
Mr. Arnab Chatterjee,
Ms. Dhanasree Biswas
... for the opposite party.
This is an application under Section 482 read with 401
of the Code of Criminal Procedure filed against the impugned
judgment dated May 31, 2017 passed by the Additional District
and Sessions Judge, 7th Court at Paschim Medinipur in criminal
revision No.06 of 2017 arising out of judgment dated 07.12.2016
passed by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, 1 st Court,
Jhargram at Paschim Medinipur in M.
R. Case No.108 of 2005 under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure.
The present petitioner is the wife and private opposite
party is the husband. The M.R. case was initiated under Section
125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure claiming maintenance by
the wife and her minor daughter. The ACJM has disposed of the
M.R. case with a direction to pay Rs.10,000/- per mention towards
the maintenance allowance to the wife and her minor daughter to
be paid by the husband. Against the said order the husband
preferred a criminal revision before the Learned District Judge.
Learned Additional Sessions Judge passed the impugned order
wherein the maintenance allowance was reduced to Rs.7,000/- i.e.
Rs.4,000.- for the wife and Rs. 3,000/- per month for her minor
daughter. The reduction of the maintenance amount is the issue
in question here.
It appears that the impugned judgment based on the
ground that, the maintenance application filed by the wife before
the learned Magistrate is claiming the maintenance of Rs.7,000/-.
Learned Additional District and Sessions Judge was of view that
the maintenance amount cannot be enhanced by the Magistrate
more than it was claimed. However, I find no such infirmity in the
said finding but considering the circumstances, it appears to me
that the impugned judgment was passed in the year 2017; we are
now at 2022. The daily expenses have enhanced to a very much
higher scale. The maintenance amount of wife and the minor
daughter has to be considered a fresh. In that score Section 127 of
the Code of Criminal Procedure has provided for enhancement of
the maintenance amount in changed circumstances..
In my view, the parties must adopt such procedure to
have a better maintenance irrespective of the comments passed by
the learned Court below in both the proceeding. I made it clear
that the findings of the learned Magistrate and the findings of the
learned Additional Sessions Judge is in respect of the maintenance
amount in a proceeding of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, has no impact upon any proceeding of Section 127 of
the Code of Criminal Procedure. So learned Magistrate is at liberty
to consider the maintenance amount as enumerated under
Section 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and law laid down
thereon. In considering the same, the learned Court below must
adhere to the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in
the matter of Rajesh Vs. Neha & Anr reported in (2021) 2 SCC 324.
Under facts and circumstances as discussed above the
instant criminal revisional application is disposed of with a
direction to the petitioner to move the learned jurisdictional
Magistrate so, that the matter can be again decided afresh
regarding enhancement maintenance as per the provisions of
Section 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and by virtue of the
judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the in the matter of Rajesh
Vs. Neha & Anr reported in (2021) 2 SCC 324.
Learned Magistrate is also directed to dispose of the
matter as early as possible more preferably, within five months
from the date of filing of the petition before the Magistrate.
Accordingly, pending connected applications, if any, are
disposed of.
All parties shall act on the server copy of this order duly
downloaded from the official website of this Court.
( Subhendu Samanta, J.)
