IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.962 of 2007 PRASHANT KUMAR Versus SARITA DEVI & ANR ----------- 2 25.8.2008 Heard Counsel for the petitioner and Counsel for opposite parties. Counsel for the petitioner very fairly submits that he will not question his liability as a husband for maintaining the wife and the child. He, however, has submitted that the petitioner, being a daily wage laborer in a mill at Bombay, having a limited resources of income of Rs. 3,000/- per month only, could not have been fastened with the liability of payment of Rs. 2,000/- per month. Normally a person being asked to pay Rs. 2,000/- per month from an assured income of Rs. 3,000/- per month for a family of three persons, would not have even otherwise shaken the conscience of this Court because if there are three persons in the family with an average income of Rupees three thousand, a month, the liability of payment of Rupees two thousands was possibly an answer for the misery which has been inflicted by the petitioner upon the wife and the child. The wife and the child have been forced to ask for maintenance only because they have been left with no other option. The matter, however, would not end there because it was the specific case of the wife in her application seeking maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.) that the petitioner was employed in Bombay and was earning Rs. 8,000/- per month. When the petitioner came to deny this statement, all that 2 he said in paragraph no.10 of his rejoinder he was that he was matriculate and a non-technical person and was anyhow earning a sum of Rs. 3,000/- in a month by way of daily wage earner in a factory at Bombay. The parties thereafter had led evidence as per their respective averments and the petitioner himself came out with a specific plea that he was working in an industry known as Navjivan Private Ltd., Mapda and that, while he had reiterated his plea of earning Rs. 3,000/- per month, he had also undertaken to produce his salary statement which was recorded in the register of company. The petitioner however did not choose to produce his salary statement before the Court below. The fact with regard to the salary of the petitioner being specially within his knowledge under Section 106 of the Evidence Act, it was for the petitioner to produce his salary statement to show that actually his salary was Rs. 3,000/- or less in a month. He however having, not done so cannot now assail the findings of the Court below the question of his income in the impugned order on the ground that the Court below had committed an error especially when this court has found that the specific statement of the wife of the petitioner on the question of income had remained virtually un- controverted. Moreover, it has come on record that the petitioner has also an additional income from the agricultural resources where he has some land in a joint family. It has further come on record that the petitioner belongs to well-to-do family inasmuch as his father also is well employed and therefore, he does not need to support his father. 3 In that view of the matter, this Court would not find the amount of Rs. 1200/- per month to be paid for the maintenance of the wife or Rs. 800/- for the maintenance of 11-12 years old daughter, who is a school going child, reading in a convent to be either excessive or illegal.. For the reasons mentioned above, this Court would not find any reason to interfere with the impugned order of the Court below and accordingly, this civil revision application, being devoid of any merit, is hereby dismissed with a direction to the Court below to ensure that the amount of arrears either under the impugned order or in terms of the order of this Court dated 14.12.2006 in Cr. Misc. No. 28492 of 2006 along with the current amount is realized from the petitioner within a period of one month from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order failing which the Court below will have the liberty to take any coercive measure against the petitioner. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)