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3. The appellant is aggrieved by the fact that the said order for interim maintenance was made effective from 29.07.2021 (which is the date of filing of the original complaint u/s 12 of the said Act) and not from the date of filing of the application u/s 23 of DV Act (the said application, as per record was actually moved on 14.10.2023).

4. Before proceeding further, it shall be relevant to note a few facts for the adjudication of the present appeal. On 29.07.2021 a complaint u/s 12 of the DV Act was moved by the respondent inter-alia against the appellant and his family members praying various reliefs against him and his family members. The said petition was not accompanied with any application u/s 23 of the DV Act praying any interim maintenance.

7. Now, the short point raised by the appellant in this appeal is that if the application u/s 23 of the DV Act was filed by the complainant on 14.10.2023, could the court award interim maintenance to the complainant / respondent herein w.e.f 29.07.2021. It is the argument of the appellant that the same could not have been done as the same is in the teeth of the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Rajnesh Vs. Neha and another (2021) 2 SCC 324. It is the argument of the appellant that in para 109 and 113 of the said judgment, it has been held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court that the right to claim maintenance must date back to the date of the filing of the application. It is further argued that the date of filing of application referred to in the said judgment is essentially, the date of filing of interim application u/s 23 of the DV Act (which admittedly was filed on 14.10.2023 in this case). The appellant argued that since there was no application u/s 23 of the DV Act prior to 14.10.2023, the Ld. Trial court committed error by awarding interim maintenance w.e.f 29.07.2021. He, thus prays for setting aside of the said order dt 12.02.2024.

8. The respondent / complainant argued that the impugned order does not suffer from any infirmity in as much as it was only an oversight that a formal application u/s 23 of the DV Act could not be filed earlier and both the parties had infact argued on different dates before the Ld. Trial Court on the point of interim maintenance which clearly shows that the parties contested the issue of interim maintenance. It is his argument that infact parties had filed their respective income affidavits before the Ld. Trial Court in terms of the judgment titled as Rajnesh Vs. Neha and another (2021) 2 SCC 324 and this clearly shows that the parties were contesting the issue of interim maintenance. It is his argument that once parties had argued on the point of interim maintenance, the filing of formal application u/s 23 of the DV Act was a mere formality and therefore the award of interim maintenance made w.e.f the date of filing of the main petition (as distinguished from the date of moving of formal application u/s 23 of the DV Act) by the Ld. Trial Court cannot be faulted. The respondent / complainant thus prays for dismissal of the appeal.

12. In my opinion, there was no infirmity committed by the Ld. Trial Court by awarding interim maintenance w.e.f. 29.07.2021 i.e. the date of filing of original petition and not w.e.f. 14.10.2023 i.e. the date of moving of formal application u/s 23 of the DV Act. This is because u/s 28 (2) of the DV Act, liberty is granted to the Trial Court to lay down its own procedure for dealing with an application u/s 12 of the DV Act or u/s 23(2) of the DV Act. It means that the legislature has granted enough liberty to the trial court for dealing with the applications under the said provisions without delimiting its power in any manner. It means that a trial court can lay down any procedure it deems fit, while dealing with the application under said provisions and therefore no infirmity can be said to have been committed by the Trial Court by hearing arguments on interim maintenance on various dates (when there was no formal written application u/s 23 of the DV Act on record) or thereafter calling upon the respondent / complainant to file a written application in this regard. The DV Act does not mandate that a written application is necessary for grant of interim order and thus, in a given case, even an oral plea can be considered by the court for grant of interim maintenance u/s 23(2) read with 28(2) of the DV Act. Section 23 (2) of the DV Act only mandates that for an exparte order, the affidavit as mandated in law may be considered by the court before grant of interim order under the various provisions mentioned therein. In this case, no exparte order was granted to the respondent.