A division bench of Gujarat high court on Tuesday asked its registry to furnish within two weeks the details about the cases of maintenance pending in various family courts across the state. The bench issued the direction on a PIL filed over the issue of delay in disposal of such cases.
DJ Bhatt, counsel on behalf of petitioner NGO ‘Shree Yogkshem Foundation for Human Dignity’, submitted that as per the provision of section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), deserted women, children, old parents are eligible to get maintenance as livelihood. A judicial magistrate is supposed to pass an order for maintenance within 60 days of serving the notice to the defaulter. Even Gujarat High Court had issued many circulars for prompt disposal of maintenance cases, Bhatt submitted.
The counsel further submitted that despite clear-cut provisions in CrPC and positive directions of the high court "it is observed that the victims and the needy people for maintenance are loitering in family courts for many months, and sometime years together, but effective, speedy and actual justice is not delivered to them within the stipulated time-frame of 60 days’’.
Giving examples, the counsel submitted that whenever the maintenance application is filed before the family court, the first hearing date is fixed after three months and for old pending applications, the hearing is adjourned for two to three months. This is as per the details obtained from the adjournment chart and the board maintained by the court, he submitted.
"In many cases, the final order of maintenance is passed after an average two to four years, which is really a dangerous period for deserted women or young children who are facing the hard realities of life. For day-to-day requirement of bread and butter, rented accommodation, household expenditure, education expenditure, medical expenditure, their chances of getting diverted from the mainstream of society towards crime increases when the victims have to wait for a long period for justice,’’ he submitted.
