Criminal Misc. No.18971-M of 2007 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Misc. No. 18971-M of 2007(O&M) Date of decision:- 1.8.2008 Baldev Singh ...Petitioner Versus Smt. Surinder Kaur and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BINDAL Present: Mr. R.K. Arya, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Sandeep Chopra, Advocate for the respondents. RAJESH BINDAL J. Challenge in the present petition is to the order dated 8.2.2007 passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Adhoc, Patiala, whereby the order dated 6.1.2007 passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Patiala was upheld. The order came to be passed in an application filed by the petitioner for setting aside an order whereby the petitioner was proceeded against ex-parte, where in proceedings initiated by the respondents against the petitioner under Section 125 Cr.P.C. Briefly the facts are that the respondents filed a petition under Section 125 Cr.P.C. for maintenance claiming that respondent no.1 is legally wedded wife of the petitioner who had refused to maintain his family. Vide order dated 24.10.2006 on account of non-appearance of the petitioner, he was proceeded ex-parte. However, on the same date an application for setting aside the ex-parte order was moved by the petitioner which was disposed of by the learned Magistrate vide order dated 6.1.2007. The ex-parte order dated 24.10.2006 was set aside subject to the payment of arrear of interim maintenance granted to the respondents. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that in the present Criminal Misc. No.18971-M of 2007 2 case respondent no.1 is claiming herself to be legally wedded wife of the petitioner whereas infact she is wife of Kartar Singh and the petitioner himself is married with Bachan Kaur and is having six children. He has referred to birth certificate of one of the child of respondent no.1 (Annexure P-3) showing the father’s name to be Kartar Singh. He further referred to an affidavit filed by Bhupinder Singh, brother of respondent no.1 who stated that the marriage of respondent no.1 was performed with Kartar Singh about 20 years back and out of wedlock 4 children were born and two of them had already married. He submitted that the petition filed by the respondents has caused unnecessary burden on the petitioner and the same is liable to be set aside. On the other hand learned counsel for the respondents submits that keeping in view the fact that the petitioner had failed to pay the interim maintenance as fixed by the Court, the learned court below was right in putting the condition of clearance of arrears for setting aside the exparte order. He submitted that in fact the petitioner is husband of respondent no. 1 as is evident from documents Annexures R-1 to R-4 which clearly show that respondent no.1 is legally wedded wife of petitioner and on account of his failure to maintain his family, they are entitled to maintenance which was rightly granted by the courts below. He prayed for dismissal of the petition. Perusal of the order passed by this Court on 26.3.2007 shows that the petitioner was directed to deposit a sum of Rs. 15,000/- with the Registry for payment to the respondents and further recovery of interim maintenance beyond Rs. 20,000/- was stayed. It may be added here that the interim maintenance was granted only to two minor children and not to respondent no.1-wife. In terms of the order passed by this court the petitioner had paid a sum of Rs. 35,000/- to the respondents. As is the case set up by the parties, there is dispute regarding the relationship of the parties which is yet to be decided by the court below. Both the parties have placed on record the documents in support of their claim, however, this court would not like to form any opinion thereon, lest the case of either of the parties is affected. However, keeping in view the fact that a sum of Rs. 35,000/- has been paid to the respondents and the application for maintenance filed by the respondents is pending in the court below for quite Criminal Misc. No.18971-M of 2007 3 sometime, in my opinion, interest of justice would be served in case the recovery of amount of interim maintenance beyond Rs. 20,000/- as directed by this Court vide order dated 26.3.2007 remain stayed during the pendency of the petition before the learned Magistrate subject to the condition that the petitioner shall continue to pay the current amount of maintenance regularly. The learned Magistrate is directed to dispose of the application within a period of 3 months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. The petition is disposed of accordingly. August 1, 2008 (RAJESH BINDAL) ritu-II JUDGE