The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that a husband cannot escape his legal obligation to pay maintenance by falsely portraying himself as non-earning or financially dependent on his parents.
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The assertion came as Justice Namit Kumar noted the emergence of a “trend” where husbands resort to such “subtle and clever tricks” to defeat legitimate maintenance claims before holding that the courts “cannot close their eyes” to such conduct.
“It has nowadays become a trend as and when an application for maintenance is filed, husband starts portraying himself to be non-earning or of poor status, displaying himself to be totally dependent upon his parents… in such kind of eventuality, the court cannot under these circumstances close its eyes, when other party is trying to play tricks in a subtle and clever manner,” Justice Namit Kumar asserted
The observations came as Justice Namit Kumar dismissed a criminal revision petition filed by a husband challenging an order passed by a Family Court, directing him to pay Rs 7,000 per month to his estranged wife as interim maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC. The amount was to be paid from the date of the maintenance application until the final decision in the main petition.
Holding that the Family Court’s decision was “well-considered” and based on material on record, the Bench declined to interfere with the order, observing that no perversity had been shown. The husband, Justice Namit Kumar noted, was initially been working with his father, a goldsmith, but claimed unemployment after matrimonial discord arose.
Justice Namit Kumar observed: “There is a general tendency on the part of the wife to amplify her needs and the husband to conceal his actual income, making it difficult to determine the earning capacity of the rival claimants with exactitude. The rival claimants must scrupulously bring on record their actual respective earning capacities.”
The court added that the quantum of maintenance must be “justifiable and realistic… to provide succour to the dependent spouse”.
Justice Namit Kumar also cited a previous ruling where it was held that “even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that he has become a Sadhu that does not absolve him from the duty to maintain his wife and children”.
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