MP High Court rules photos showing wife isn’t destitute can’t be used to deny maintenance

“The family court had committed patent jurisdictional error in rejecting the claim of the petitioner for grant of maintenance pendente lite on the ground that from her photographs filed by the respondent, she does not appear to be destitute. The same may not be a legal consideration for deciding the claim of maintenance,” the court said on August 20.

The order noted that the family court had further erred in disposing of the application preferred by the petitioner seeking grant of maintenance pendente lite filed under Section 24 of the HM Act without calling for a disclosure affidavit from the respondent.  The ruling comes around 15 years after the complaint was registered in 2010 and the constable was rewarded for his bravery in 2011 following the operation.

Wife challenged maintenance rejection order

The couple got married in July, 2003, according to Hindu rites. The couple had been living separately for a considerable period. The husband then filed a divorce petition under Sections 13(1)(i-a) and 13(1)(i-b) of the Hindu Marriage Act, alleging grounds of cruelty and desertion.

Justice Amit Seth heard the matter on August 20.

During the pending divorce proceedings, the wife filed an application under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, seeking Rs 1 lakh per month as interim maintenance and Rs 20,000 towards litigation expenses. She also submitted an affidavit disclosing her assets and liabilities in accordance.

The husband opposed the maintenance claim, contending that the wife was earning Rs 1.5 lakh per month from other sources and was working as the secretary of an organisation, and was therefore capable of maintaining herself.

The family court on May 15 rejected the wife’s claim for interim maintenance, while awarding Rs 6,000 as litigation expenses. It relied, among other things, on an earlier affidavit and photographs filed by the husband, observing that she did not appear to be destitute, and therefore, not entitled to maintenance.

The wife challenged this order before the high court, arguing that the Rs 1.5 lakh figure mentioned in her earlier affidavit actually related to her husband’s income, and that the family court had wrongly treated it as her income.

Appearing for the wife, advocate Devendra Goswami argued that the family court had decided the petitioner’s maintenance application without first obtaining the husband’s mandatory disclosure affidavit. She also challenged the family court’s subsequent refusal to recall its order and its rejection of her application seeking discovery and production of documents concerning the husband’s claim about her income.

Wife’s income misread by family court: Order

The court noted that the family court misread the wife’s Hindi disclosure affidavit from a separate case. Due to ambiguous/flawed phrasing in the printed Hindi format (using the word “vipakshi”/opponent under income heads), the Rs 1.50 lakh monthly income mentioned was meant to represent the husband’s income from other sources, not the wife’s.

The ruling held that the family court erred by deciding the wife’s Section 24 application without requiring the respondent-husband to file a mandatory disclosure affidavit of assets and liabilities, as strictly mandated by the Supreme Court.

While acknowledging a prior high court direction for the expeditious disposal of the main divorce case, the court observed that speed must not come at the cost of bypassing due process of law or ignoring mandatory procedural requirements.