IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.157 of 2008 BALDEO PRASAD SINGH Versus SHILA DEVI ----------- 2 11/9/2008 Heard counsel for the petitioner. In the opinion of this Court the amount of ad-interim maintenance under section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in view of the fact that the petitioner is a Government employee having take home salary of Rs. 11,000/- per month as stated by the opposite party, wife, in her application for interim maintenance and not controverted by the petitioner, is good enough for being awarded the maintenance of Rs. 2,000/- per month. There being no dispute regarding relationship of husband and wife between the petitioner and the opposite party and again there being no dispute that during subsistence of the aforesaid first marriage, the petitioner, either with consent or otherwise, had entered into second marriage, would automatically be deemed to have been neglecting his first and only legal wife by forcing her to live separately on account of his second wife, 2 being the mistress of his house. Thus on the own showing of the petitioner, this Court for the reasons indicated above would not interfere with the impugned order granting maintenance. Mr. Shukla, counsel for the petitioner, however, would contend that the petitioner in order to settle this dispute had got a house constructed in the name of his first wife, the opposite party from which she is having permanent income of Rs. 3,000/- per month by way of letting them on rent. He further submits that certain lands also were purchased by the petitioner in the name of his first wife- opposite party and they are still in her possession. He would, therefore, submit that the court below while fixing amount of maintenance ought to have taken into consideration all these aspects specially when they were also stated at length in the rejoinder to the application filed by the wife-opposite party for grant of interim maintenance. In the considered opinion of this Court, all these issues will require 3 leading of evidence for its being evaluated on comparative scales. Such complicated issue could not have been gone into at the stage of interim maintenance, where only some sort of arrangement is to be made for basic survival of person on the prima-facie materials. That being so, while this Court would not interfere in the impugned order, it would direct the court below to take into account the aforementioned pleas of the petitioner at the time of final disposal in the light of the evidence brought on records. With the aforementioned observation this application is disposed of with a direction to the petitioner to pay both arrears and current amount, if not already paid, within a period of one month from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. ( Mihir Kumar Jha, J. ) Abhay Kumar