From Rs 50,000 to 3.5 lakh a month: Court orders hike in maintenance for divorced wife after man lies about income under oath

The court ordered the man to deposit Rs. 42 lakhs towards the 12-month payment starting from November 1 in the woman’s account within four weeks.

A bench of Justices Burgess P Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan, also factored in “inflation, and that their daughter being of the age where significant resources were needed to get a good professional education.”

The couple had got married in 1997 and co-habited in their matrimonial home for 16 years and lived separately since 2013 and the man filed divorce plea in 2015. The Family court had granted interim maintenance of Rs. 50,000 per month. In 2023, the family court allowed his divorce plea and granted him divorce on the ground of cruelty and fixed permanent alimony of the same amount.

The wife approached the HC seeking enhancement of the maintenance claiming that she was struggling to maintain a decent life for her daughter, while the man opposed the compensation.

“It is true that for a divorced wife to ensure her daughter gets a basically acceptable standard education and life, she may need to undertake multiple jobs to earn just Rs. 1 lakh per month,” the HC noted.

The court observed that the husband’s family operated multiple real estate, construction and financial businesses with him holding himself out as the “torchbearer” of these businesses and his share in the bank of the family was over Rs. 100 crore.

The HC said that by referring to taxable income of just Rs. 6 lakhs per annum, the man “would have the court believe that” his expenses and lifestyle are financed by a sum of Rs. 50, 000 per month, however, “on the facet of it, the import is farcical.”

Justice Sundaresan, who authored 41-page judgement added “We must hasten to add that to our minds, there is nothing to be judgemental or inappropriate about throwing a milestone birthday party with free-flowing alcohol, or the donning of expensive top of the line luxury brand T-shirts at the party. What does not appeal to us in forming our judgement, is the act of contemporaneously lying on oath about being a man of no means, earning just Rs. 6 lakhs per annum…”

The Court also expressed displeasure over his submission that his divorced wife should cut down on expenses for his daughter like her yoga classes, violin classes along with her cooking and baking classes.

“Repeatedly calling these exorbitant, in our opinion, and that too by a person of his lifestyle, materially undermines his credibility and emphasises a mean and vindictive approach to the welfare of his own daughter, for no reason other than the fact that she is parented by the appellant woman,” the HC noted.

The Court, while increasing maintenance amount, prima facie held that the woman and her daughter were “entitled to lead a life of dignity” and Rs. 50, 000 per month was “hardly a reasonable and logical quantum of maintenance.”

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