Beg, borrow or steal…but man must pay maintenance to his wife under any circumstances. This is the approach adopted by most courts in India, without putting any onus on the fully-abled wife to become self dependent.
In a case reported from Rajasthan, a man was arrested for not paying maintenance to his wife. The total sum payable to the wife was Rs 55,000 which the husband requested to pay the same in coins after his arrest. The same was allowed by the court.
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Case:
Dashrath Kumawat, a resident of Harmada area in Jaipur, was arrested on June 17 after family court issued a recovery warrant against him for non-payment of maintenance to his wife Seema Kumawat for the past eleven months.
A divorce case of the couple is pending at the family court, where the husband was directed to pay Rs 5,000 per month as maintenance to his wife.
To everyone’s astonishment, the husband’s family reached court with the total sum filled in seven sacks in a denomination of Re. 1 and Rs 2 coins, reported PTI.
The judge allowed this form of payment but asked the man to count the coins in court and make packets of Rs 1,000 each. The court directed the husband to complete the formalities and hand over the full amount to his wife before the next hearing.
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Wife Objected It As Mental Harassment
Ramprakash Kumawat, the counsel for the wife objected to this, terming it “mental harassment”. Speaking with PTI, he said,
It was done in a preplanned manner just to harass the woman. However, the court has permitted him to give the coins.
Adding further, Kumawat said,
The court then allowed the husband to give the coins after counting them on the next hearing in the family court on June 26.
Till then, the coins will remain in the custody of the court. The husband will have to count the coins and make packets of Rs 1,000 each before handing them over to the wife in the court.
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Statement by Husband’s Lawyer
Raman Gupta, the advocate who represented the husband told PTI,
Since the husband refused to give the amount, the police arrested him. The family court was closed due to holidays so he was produced in the link court of Additional District Judge (ADG)-number 8.
In the court, the family members of Dashrath reached with coins worth Rs 55,000 to give to his wife. The coins were in the denomination Re 1 and Rs 2 and were stuffed in seven sacks.
Gupta argued that these coins are legal tender and no one can refuse to accept them.
Advocate Husband Brings Monthly Maintenance In Form Of ‘Coins’ To Pay His Estranged Wife In Court
Voice For Men India Take:
- Many will express that the husbands play endless tricks to harass wives and not pay them maintenance
- Without justifying the action of the husband in question, we need to ask why men behave in this fashion
- At the outset, Voice For Men India does not support defiance of the law and if one is not satisfied with the lower court’s decision, they can always appeal at the High Court
- On the other hand, our maintenance laws are extremely one-sided, and the interim maintenance is awarded on mere application of the woman, without any fault of the husband being proven
- The minute this maintenance clock starts ticking, wives often stop attending court dates for actual arguments on the divorce matter
- Effectively, men are compelled to pay maintenance to their wives every month, huge fees to lawyers to fight a dead case (where wives keep taking adjournments) and without any closure to the divorce matter in foresight
- In reality, the current maintenance laws actually favour no one – neither the wives nor the husbands. It only fuels payments to lawyers from both sides without either party getting any real justice, and legally allows disgruntled wives to satisfy their ego
- While wives are misusing laws to every extent to extort maximum alimony, men on the other hand, are finding all possible options to ring-fence their assets
- The only solution to put an end to these meaningless matrimonial battles is to have time bound proceedings and make divorce process faster and simpler for both spouses
