Del HC | Magistrate empowered to grant interim maintenance under S. 23 of DV Act from the date of filing of substantive petition under S.12

Delhi High Court: Sanjeev Sachdeva, J., while dismissing a criminal revision petition, held that the magistrate has a power to pass an order granting interim maintenance under Section 23 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, with effect from the date of filing of the substantive petition under Section 12.

The wife filed a petition under Section 12 against the husband on 10-09-2014. Subsequently, on the wife’s petition under Section 23, by the impugned order the Magistrate awarded interim maintenance of Rs 15,000 for the wife and Rs 15,000 for the minor daughter payable monthly by the husband (appellant). The maintenance was ordered to paid from the date of filing of the substantive petition under Section 12.

Ranjan Bajaj, Advocate for the husband submitted that the trial court was in error in awarding maintenance from the date of filing of petition under Section 12. Per contra, Varun Chawla, Advocate appearing for the wife, supported the impugned order.

The High Court perused the entire record and held that the trial court passed the order of maintenance after proper analysis of all the relevant material. As for the submission of the husband mentioned above, the Court observed, “Section 23 of the DV Act does not provide a substantive right to parties but is a provision which empowers the trial court to pass an order granting interim maintenance in a petition filed under Section 12 of the DV Act. Merely because the trial court has not exercised the power under Section 23 of the DV Act, when a substantive petition under Section 12 of DV Act was filed and chose to pass an order only when a separate application under Section 23 of the DV Act was filed, does not mean that a Magistrate does not have the power to pass an order with effect from the date of filing of the substantive petition under Section 12.” In such view of the matter, the court did not find any merit in the petition which was thus dismissed. [Gaurav Manchanda v. Namrata Singh, 2019 SCC OnLine Del 7353, dated 27-02-2019]