- (1.) The instant contempt application is filed by the wife alleging the willful and deliberate violation of order dated March 22, 2013 passed in CO 335 of 2013. The aforesaid revisional application was filed against an order no. 50 dated November 23, 2012 passed in Misc. Case No. 12 of 2010 by which an application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 was disposed of. This Court interfered with the impugned order and modified to the extent that the husband/opposite party shall pay a monthly alimony pendente lite of Rs. 5,500/- which is inclusive of the other quantum awarded towards the maintenance in different proceedings and further directed the alleged contemnor to liquidate of the arrear alimony pendente lite in four monthly equated instalments beginning on and from July 15, 2013. Aalleging that inspite of the knowledge of the said order, the alleged contemnor willfully and deliberately did not pay the alimony pendente lite as well as the arrears, the instant contempt application is taken out by the wife/petitioner.
(2.) At the time of moving the instant revisional application a doubt was raised over the maintainability of the instant contempt application as the order under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is capable of execution under Section 28A of the said Act.
(3.) Before proceeding to deal with the points canvassed before this Court, it would be apt to quote the aforesaid provision, which runs thus: "28A. Enforcement of decrees and orders:- All the decrees and orders made by the Court in any proceedings under the Act shall be enforced in the like manner as the decrees and orders of the Court made in exercise of its original civil jurisdiction for the time being are in enforced." It is, therefore, aptly clear that the decrees or orders passed in a proceeding under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 are executable and/or enforceable under Order 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The point that arose is if an order under Section 24 of the said Act can be enforced as a decree, as an order passed by a Civil Court in its original jurisdiction, whether a person who did not act in terms of the said order can be punished under the Contempt of Courts Act. Mr. Hironmoy Bhattacharya, the learned advocate for the petitioner relies upon a judgment of the Division Bench rendered in case of Mira Bose V Santosh Kumar Bose, 1973 AIR(Cal) 483 in support of his contention that even if the order is capable of being enforced as a decree or order it cannot be said that the disobedience thereof shall not construe as contumacious act punishable under the Contempt of Courts Act.;