IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.558 of 2009 SANGEETA GEETA Versus ASHUTOSH KUMAR RANJAN ----------- 3. 22.5.2009 Heard Sri Rajendra Prasad Singh, senior counsel for the petitioner and Sri J.S. Arora, Advocate for the Opposite Party. The petitioner in the present revision petition is the wife of solitary Opposite Party. They are litigating for dissolution of their marriage in Matrimonial Petition no.369 of 2004, presently pending before the Principal Judge, Patna. The petition was brought by the husband of the present petitioner. It has not been denied that there has been several rounds of litigations in this court between the parties and two orders are brought on the record of the present revision petition also, which were passed in two revision petitions one in a batch of four civil revision petitions headed by C.R. No. 1606 of 2006 and the other passed in C.R.No.302 of 2009. While disposing of the batch of four civil revision petitions, this court had put down certain time frames and conditions on examination of witnesses and payment of - 2 - arrears of monthly maintenance as also the monthly maintenance to the petitioner after the same had been computed by the court below. The order which was passed in the batch of the revision petitions on 11.7.2008 was questioned before the Apex Court through a S.L.Ps. no. 26894-26895/2008 which was preferred by the Opposite Party but without any relief to him. Thereafter, the petitioner wife raised the issue of non-payment or no scheduled payment of the arrears of her allowance as also the monthly maintenance pendente lite and the court below passed an order which was challenged in Civil Revision no.302 of 2009 and the Hon’ble Judge who was hearing that particular civil revision, recorded a finding that there was no case made out of default in payment of arrears of maintenance and, as such, there could not be any question to direct issuance of coercive processes. On both the occasions the court was issuing a direction to the wife to cooperate by cross-examination of witnesses in expediting the matter and disposal of the petition within the time frame, as set down by the court. What appears from the impugned order is - 3 - that on 16.1.2009 the wife was again raising the same issue of non-payment of arrears and her maintenance and refused to cross-examine two witnesses who were produced on behalf of the husband and forced the court to discharge both of them. It is not that it was the solitary occasion that the wife was refusing to cross- examining the witness, there were several such occasions as may appear from orders subsequently passed by the Family Court,Patna on 24.1.2009, 9.2.2009, 6.3.2009 and 4.4.2009, the copies of which appear on the counter affidavit filed by the Opposite Party today in this revision petition. I have gone through each and every order myself and I find that the learned Principal Judge was finding him in a highly helpless situation on account of the conduct of the petitioner(wife) in not cross-examining the witnesses. That conduct appears completely in derogation of direction of this court. While hearing the present petition and while considering, as indicated above, the dates on which the petitioner refused cross-examining the witnesses including the husband I am firm in - 4 - holding a view that she wanted simply to dilate the proceedings as much as she could. This impression is held by the lower court also, because, the lower court, in almost all of its orders, has mentioned one fact in same words and with same purpose of highlighting the conduct of the petitioner that the purpose was by raising hyper-technical-issue to delay the disposal and not to allow the Court to proceed to dispose it of and on occasions she threatened the Court that she was likely to approach this court to bring stay order. I could understand the position of the Judge who is ordained to hear the Matrimonial case. The Judge must have become depressed and sad by finding himself helpless on account of the conduct of a party(wife)to the proceedings who was directed by this court to cooperate in the trial of the proceedings and ensure that she participated by cross-examining the witnesses. The petitioner appears not doing it. This is one aspect of the matter. The other aspect of the matter is that the grievance of the petitioner is that she was not paid arrears of maintenance or monthly maintenance and as such the husband should be - 5 - defaulted for non-payment and should be proceeded against which contention has already been rejected by one of the benches of this Court in C.R.no.302 of 2009. It might be a case of not meeting the schedules exactly as regards the time of the monthly maintenance or the arrears of maintenance. It has been brought to my notice that the first instalment was paid on 18.12.2006, the second on 16.1.2009 and the third on two dates in part, i.e. on 2.3.2009 and 15.3.2009 as may appear from order passed by the court below on 26.2.2009 and the last, i.e., the 4th, on 21st of April, 2009. I have observed earlier that I have an impression that the wife petitioner was attempting only to dilating the proceeding and that appears only with a purpose of extracting as much amount of maintenance as she could get. It gets strength from the fact that on all occasions she was refusing cross- examining the witnesses produced by the husband as per the direction of this Court. The court was pointed out either by her or by her counsel too on all such dates that she was approaching this court through a civil revision petition. This could be simply unacceptable that one - 6 - could be behaving in such a manner in a court where she was directed to participate and participate by cross-examination of witnesses! The court had no option but to discharge the witnesses on account of refusal. I do not see any reason to direct the recall of the witnesses of the petitioner for their cross- examination. If the petitioner so desires, she may produce her witnesses within two months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. The revision petition is dismissed with the above directions. B.Kr. ( Dharnidhar Jha, J. )