Husband Is Duty Bound To Maintain Wife, Support Her Financially: Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday said it is the duty and obligation of a husband to maintain his wife and to provide financial support to her and their children except if any legally permissible ground is contained in the statutes. Justice Subramonium Prasad upheld the order of a trial court directing a man to pay a monthly amount of Rs 17,000 to his estranged wife and said he has not been able to point out any perversity in the order, Financial Express reported quoting the news agency PTI.

The case in point

Who is the man who has challenged the trial court order?

He is an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI). He is supposed to pay Rs 17,000 a month to his wife, who has no stable source of income.

The woman in the case

The woman, in her statement before the trial court, had said that she was doing modelling of and on but was earning very low income and that her statement by itself does not mean that she was able to sustain herself or that she was earning enough to sustain herself.

“No material has been placed on record to show that the respondent (wife) is able to sustain herself. Magazine covers are not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the respondent can sustain herself,” said the court.

The court’s order

“It is the duty of the husband to maintain his wife and to provide financial support to her and their children. A husband cannot avoid his obligation to maintain his wife and children except if any legally permissibly ground is contained in the statutes,” it said, in its order passed on Monday.

The matrimonial dispute

The couple had got married in June 1985. They had three children out of wedlock, two sons and one daughter. The daughter passed away in 2010 and the two sons are major now and are well employed now.

The couple has been staying separately since 2012. The woman alleged that she was ill-treated by her husband and was thrown out of the house and has been unable to support herself and needs maintenance. She claimed that her husband was drawing a salary of Rs 50,000 per month and has also got agricultural land from which also he gets income, the report said.

Denying the allegations of cruelty, the man stated that he has taken care of his children and given them good education and that the woman is earning handsomely. He claimed that she participates in jagrans and does TV serials and was thus in a position to take care of and maintain herself.

What the court said

The high court said that apart from filing a few covers of magazines and one newspaper clipping nothing has been filed by the man to substantiate that the woman was earning sufficient income to maintain herself, PTI reported.

“The petitioner (man) at present is working as an ASI, both his sons are majors and are well employed and he is not under any obligation to maintain his two children but he is under a legal obligation to maintain his wife. The respondent (woman) herein is forced to stay alone,” it said.

Asked by the court whether the man has filed any petition for divorce, his counsel stated that the children do not want him to take divorce from his wife. “In view of the above, it becomes the moral and legal obligation of the petitioner/husband to maintain his wife. Considering the fact that the petitioner is an ASI, having virtually no other liability, he can pay Rs 17,000 per month to the respondent/wife who otherwise is not able to maintain herself,” the high court said while dismissing the man’s revision petition, the report further added.