If any person against whom an order to pay maintenance or interim maintenance or expenses of the proceedings is passed, fails to comply with such order, without having sufficient cause to do so, the Magistrate may, for every breach of such order, issued a warrant for levying the amount due in the same manner as is provided for levying fines, and may, in addition, sentence such a person to imprisonment which may extend to one month or until payment, whichever is earlier.
However, such a warrant cannot be issued if an application in this respect is made to the Court after the expiry of one year from the date on which the amount in question became due. This provision has been enacted to prevent a person in whose favour an order for maintenance has been made, from being negligent and allowing arrears to pile up until their recovery becomes a hardship, if not an impossibility.
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The intention was certainly not that a loophole should be given to the person against whom an order was made to evade payment by preventing service of the process on him. As a matter of fact, the provision is worded expressly to preclude the possibility of such an evasion.