Judgment : One Padma alias Rajalakshmi for herself and on behalf of her minor daughter Tamizvani, filed a petition under Sec.125, Cr.P.C. before learned Judicial First Class Magistrate, Pondicherry claiming maintenance against her husband Kalaimani. Learned Magistrate, on perusal of the materials placed before him, awarded maintenance in a sum of Rs.400 to the wife and Rs.200 to the minor daughter per mensem on and from the date of the petition, namely, 2. 19S7 till such time as is permissible under law, giving rise to the present revision. 2. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner husband is not at all disputing the liability of the husband to pay maintenance to his wife. Learned counsel would mount a virtual attack on the sustainability of the award of maintenance of two grounds: (1) The award of maintenance under Sec.125, Cr.P.C. cannot subsist on the face of a decree for maintenance awarded by a competent Civil Court; and (2) The quantum of maintenance awarded is grossly disproportionate to the earning power of the husband. 3. To both these submissions, I am unable to affix my seal of approval, on the facts and circumstances of the case. It is not as if the wife approached the civil Court claiming maintenance for herself and her minor daughter. But the pity is that the husband initialed divorce proceedings in M.O.P.No.110 of 1984 and during the course of such proceedings, the Court ordered interim maintenance in a paltry amount of Rs.100 to the wife and such proceedings also got terminated in favour of the wife, in the sense of dismissal of the petition. It is not as if learned Magistrate while awarding maintenance to the wife had not taken into consideration such aspect of the matter. A cursory perusal of the judgment would reveal that this aspect of the matter had received anxious consideration at the hands of the Magistrate and he had given a clear finding that the interim maintenance awarded during the course of divorce proceedings cannot be equated with that of a decree of a competent Civil Court, inasmuch as the subject matter of proceeding was not on the question of claim of award of maintenance by the wife and the interim maintenance ordered during the proceedings, as already stated, also got terminated by the dismissal of the divorce proceedings. As such, this submission merits little. 4. As such, this submission merits little. 4. As regards the other submission revolving on the quantum of maintenance, the earning capacity of the husband has to be given due consideration. The evidence on record, in the shape of P.W.2, the pay Master Coupled with Ex.P5 series, pay certificates would amply demonstrate that his gross salary was Rs.1,600 in the year 1988-89 and he was having a carry-home salary of Rs.600 per mensem. This income is in addition to the rental income he is staled to have been in receipt of from the properly he possessed. Learned Magistrate while determining this quantum of maintenance had given a clear finding that the husband with the oblique motive of depriving his wife and a minor daughter of their legitimate amount of maintenance to be paid, in the event of her success in the maintenance proceedings she has initialed against him, made certain financial commitments and allowed so much of deductions from his salary. In such state of affairs, nobody is to be blamed except himself. Further the salary that he was drawing in the year 1988-89 would have almost been doubled due to pay-hike as a result of revision of pay by the sands of passage of time now. In this view of the matter, the quantum of maintenance awarded to the wife and her daughter totalling in a sum of Rs.600 per mensem cannot be stated to be grossly disproportionate to the earning capacity of the petitioner-husband. This submission also bristles next to nothing. 5. As such, the revision deserves to be dismissed even at the admission stage. 6. In the result, the revision is dismissed.