IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.532 of 2008 UMESH PD. SINGH Versus SEEL ----------- 2 16.9.2008 Heard Counsel for the petitioner. In the opinion of this Court, the father i.e. the petitioner cannot deny payment of amount of maintenance towards the opposite party who claims the petitioner to be her father, even though he has disowned her. It is not in doubt that the petitioner is contesting litigation with regard to his matrimonial life and a divorce suit is pending in which one of the grounds taken by the petitioner is that the wife was living in adultery and the opposite party, the child of the wife of the petitioner actually did not belong to him. Counsel for the petitioner would therefore, submit that the Court below has committed an error in allowing such claim of the maintenance payable to a person whom the petitioner does not recognize as his daughter. He further submits that the petitioner is a Jail Superintendent and his take-home salary is of Rs. 15,000/- per month and thus, when he is already paying maintenance of Rs. 1500/- per month to his wife, he should not have been subjected to any further order of maintenance towards the alleged daughter of his wife. 2 Having given conscious consideration to the aforementioned submission, this Court would find that the petitioner is really under some sort of misconception. It is not that the moment the man alleges that a woman including a wife is living in adultery, the same also gets automatically proved. If that be so, the opposite party claiming to be daughter is yet to be declared illegitimate child. Accordingly, she cannot be denied maintenance when she has been made to believe that non-else except the petitioner is her father. That apart, when the petitioner on his own showing is having take-home salary of Rs. 15,000/- and is paying only Rs. 1500/- per month towards maintenance to his wife, he cannot not take a plea of lack of income for paying an amount of Rs. 2,000/- as directed by the Court below in the impugned order to his alleged daughter. That being so, this Court would not find any reason to interfere with the impugned order and accordingly, this civil revision application is dismissed with a direction to the petitioner to pay the arrears and current amount under the impugned order within a period of one month from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)