IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.961 of 2008 DILIP AGRAWAL Versus SMT. MEENA AGRAWAL & ANR ----------- 4 23.07.2008 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the opposite party. The grievance of the petitioner against the impugned order dated 23.5.2008 whereby and whereunder the Court below had fixed the case for argument in the background of the earlier orders passed by the Court on 1.5.2008, 9.5.2008 and 16.5.2008 does not seem to be correct inasmuch as on all these days despite opportunity given to the petitioner to lead evidence, he did not choose to produce his witnesses. Counsel for the petitioner, however, has submitted that there was an earlier order dated 19.10.2006 passed by the Court allowing an application filed by the petitioner by which certain documents were called for from the Bank/Post office and the petitioner therefore remained under a bonafide impression that he would be required to lead evidence only after production of such documents from the bank/post office. Counsel appearing on behalf of the wife/opposite party on the other hand, submits that the matrimonial case is a case of the year, 2005 and the documents which had been called for by the order dated 19.10.2006 were only by way of the defence of the petitioner and, therefore, petitioner was still under obligation to lead his evidence and process his case. He further submits that if the Bank or the Post Office would not give such 2 documents, it would not mean that the maintenance case filed by the wife opposite party will never be decided. Having considered the aforementioned submissions this Court is of the view that the plea as raised by the petitioner in paragraph No.9 of his examination-in-chief which refers to the Bank transaction and/or deposit or withdrawal of money in the Bank by the wife/opposite party is a fact which has to be proven by the petitioner and for this the disposal of the matrimonial case would not await endlessly till submission of such documents by Post office/Bank. It is a plea of defence of the petitioner and, therefore, he has to make an arrangement for the documents in question being the entries of pass book of the Bank/Post Office which is easily available. The petitioner cannot expect that his pass book entry or for that purpose the entries in Bank Account of his wife, will be produced by the authorities of the Bank or Post Office. In that view of the matter, this Court would direct the court below to give only one indulgence to the petitioner to lead his evidence The evidence to be led by the petitioner must be completed within a period of one month whereafter the arguments must be concluded and the final order in maintenance case must be passed within a period of three months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this Order. With the aforesaid observations and directions this application is disposed of. BJC (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.) 3