The Delhi HC in a recent verdict, has remarked that a spouse who has a reasonable capacity to earn but chooses to remain unemployed and sit idle without valid explanation or indicating any sincere efforts to gain employability should not be allowed to saddle the other partner with the one-sided responsibility of bearing whole expenses by providing maintenance.
The high court made the observation while reducing the amount of monthly maintenance from Rs 30,000 to Rs 21,000 to be paid by a man to his estranged wife under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA). A bench of justices V Kameswar Rao and Anoop Kumar Mendiratta has dealt with the verdict.
The HC noted that the woman claimed to have no independent source of income but holds a standard educational background being a graduate from Delhi University.
“She appears to have voluntarily undertaken social work as claimed despite there being no impediment to undertaking meaningful employment”, as per the bench of judges report.
It was emphasised by the HC that the provision for maintenance under the HMA is gender neutral and sections 24 and 25 of the Act provide for the rights, liabilities and obligations arising from marriage between the parties.
The bench also highlighted that the maintenance does not necessarily mean to provide with mathematical precision but to give some relief to the spouse who is incapable to maintain and support during the pendency of proceedings and to make it sure that the party should not suffer due to absence of source of income.
The high court addressed the man’s appeal challenging the trial court’s order directing him to pay Rs 30,000 monthly maintenance along with litigation expenses of Rs 51,000 to his estranged wife. The man argued that his in-hand salary of Rs 47,000 couldn’t support the increased maintenance. He claimed that the woman was earning Rs 25,000 monthly while working at a hospital, but she contended that she works as volunteer social worker and thus not earning salary.
The high court said that maintenance of Rs 21,000 per month to the woman would be continued till disposal of the petition before the trial court. Furthermore, the maintenance during the pendency of divorce proceedings shall be enhanced by Rs 1,500 per month for each succeeding year till the disposal of the plea given that inflation and rising prices might hamper the living standards.
The couple got married in 2018 but later separated in 2020 owing to the differences between them. However, in India where patriarchal norms are still gripling the society, it is understandable that to resume a career being a single woman would be tougher and enduring societal taunts and pressure might further make the situation complicated.
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