In it’s recent judgement, a Delhi Court has passed an order that a husband cannot be expected to provide maintenance when the wife is capable of maintaining herself.
Case:
- In a battle of interim maintenance between an estranged couple, wife had claimed a monthly maintenance of Rs 3.5 Lakh per month
- Her lawyer claimed that the husband was earning a salary of Rs 1.5 crore annually
- On the other side, husband’s lawyer contradicted the petitioner’s demand, citing that the woman was herself earning Rs 5 Lakhs per month from her business
- The woman’s lawyer argued that the business had run into losses and her client was rendered incapable of taking care of herself and the minor child
- In such a scenario, Judge Swati Gupta considered the sales volume of the wife’s business and also the media coverage it had received
- Going through the numbers, the judge said it was difficult to believe that the woman was making losses in her business
- Gupta further went on to add that even if the court assumed that the business was in negative, it did not accept the fact that the woman was unable to maintain herself
- The court took into account the reputation of the shop and qualification of the woman, thereby stating that the wife was very talented and also capable of fending for herself
- Swati Gupta also said if the business was indeed in losses, why did the wife choose to continue with the same, instead of finding employment in the same industry
- The court said it could not allow the husband to ‘bear the brunt’ of the situation and awarding maintenance to the wife may result in diverting the hard earned salary of the husband into loss making business of the wife
- The husband on the other hand was paying Ad-interim maintenance of Rs 20,000 in addition to the child’s school and transport fee
- The husband was also willing to pay every penny of actual expenses towards the child and demonstrated good intentions of not shrugging his responsibility
- Despite the court being convinced that the wife did not deserve any monthly maintenance, it awarded a sum of Rs 1 Lakh per month as interim maintenance for the child
Our Take:
- Our governments could be blind to the misuse of women centric laws and in order to please the women vote bank, our ministers keep making absurd statements promoting the legal extortion industry – Read Alimony/Maintenance/Reverse Dowry
- In this case, Judge Swati Gupta has been quite reasonable with her judgement
- She has not blindly awarded any sum to the wife, by merely citing the income of the husband
- On the other hand, considering the status of the husband, she has awarded a decent sum that could be used for the well-being of the child during the growing up years
- Of course, whether the father will get to enjoy the fruits of his fatherhood with the child, will be a different question
- However, the judgement is fair in terms of discouraging fully able-bodied educated working women, to demand interim maintenance as their birth right
- In several cases, we do observe that lady judges are able to take a stand against wives that are totally unreasonable
- Most often male judges still try to bend more towards the women in such judgements
ALSO READ –
Follow www.mensdayout.com on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Join our Facebook Group or follow us on social media by clicking on the icons below
Blogging about Equal Rights for Men or writing about Gender Biased Laws is often looked upon as controversial, as many 'perceive' it Anti-Women. Due to this grey area - where we demand Equality in the true sense for all genders - most brands distance themselves from advertising on a portal like ours.
We, therefore, look forward to your support as donors who understand our work and are willing to partner in this endeavour to spread this cause. Do support our work to counter one sided gender biased narratives in the media.
To make an instant donation, click on the "Donate Now" button above. For information regarding donation via Bank Transfer, click here.
Alternately, you can also donate to us via our UPI ID: voiceformenindia@hdfcbank
Follow Us
