Written by: Jayant Sriram
3 min readNew DelhiMar 5, 2012 01:33 AM IST
First published on: Mar 5, 2012 at 01:33 AM IST
A Delhi court has ordered a man to pay maintenance to his estranged wife though it has found that she is capable of earning enough money for herself and is better educated than her former husband. The court ruled that after her divorce in 2003,the woman had no means to support herself and it was on this basis that the amount of maintenance should be decided.
Petitioner told the court that she had married a PWD draftsman in 2002,and though her family had given a substantial dowry her husband’s family continuously harassed her for more.
She alleged that her husband’s family was cruel to her and her husband suspected her of having an affair with her brother-in-law.
She was forced to leave her marital home in 2003,and since then her husband had not paid her a single penny by way of maintenance,the petitioner said.
Since then,she had completed her LLB degree from a Noida-based institution,was now an advocate,and was also enrolled in a company secretary course.
In response,the husband said that the woman had left him without any cause and that he had made several attempts to bring her back. He said she was running a computer education centre,from which she was earning about Rs 30,000 per month and used to give tuitions to students up to Class X. He said Sulekha’s financial status was strong and thus,he wasn’t entitled to pay any maintenance to her.
He was,however,unable to submit document to prove her income.
Metropolitan Magistrate Vandana Jain found that there was sufficient cause for the petitioner to leave her husband’s house and to file for divorce thereafter. Though the husband had failed to give any documentary evidence about her income,the judge noted that she had admitted that she was giving tuitions,had a law degree,and was enrolled in a company secretary course.
However,the court said that her plea for maintenance could take into account only the means available to her when she was living with her husband and not the efforts made by her subsequently to survive.
“Meaning of grant of maintenance… would mean the means available to the deserted wife while she was living with her husband and would not take within itself the efforts made by the wife after desertion to survive somehow… Her efforts to survive again and doing so much of hard work is quite appreciable,” the court noted.
The PWD employee,who has remarried and has two daughters from the second marriage,was ordered to pay Rs 3,500 per month to his ex-wife. The court said the amount would be due to her till she remarried.
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