Can A Husband’s Pensioner Parents Be Considered While Determining Wife’s Maintenance?

The Delhi High Court, in a recent judgment, reinforced the maintenance rights of an estranged spouse and children. The court has set aside the family court order that had set aside a wife’s reduced maintenance based on the husband’s voluntary loan repayments and the wife’s capacity to earn. Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma set aside the lower court’s order and directed the court to fresh determine the maintenance amount within one month.

Beginning Of The Conflict

The case started in 2016, when the petitioner (wife) filed a petition against her husband for dowry-related cruelty and harassment. Their marriage was in 2014. Allegedly, her husband, a government bank employee, started harassing her after the marriage. In 2015, their daughter was born, but the husband allegedly neglected and refused to maintain them, compelling her to leave her matrimonial home with her infant daughter. Then, in 2016, the wife sought financial support from him under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C.

While she was initially granted interim maintenance of Rs 20,000 (Rs 10,000 each for her and the child) in 2018, the husband challenged it, and in 2023, the Karkardooma Family Court, Delhi, reduced the maintenance amount to Rs 13,000 (Rs 8,000 for the wife and Rs 5,000 for the child).

Income Illusion

The wife approached the high court regarding this. The high court found that the husband (respondent) earned a gross monthly salary of around Rs 1 lakh (Rs 99,914), and the lower court treated his net salary at around Rs 50,000 (Rs 50,833) as the base of the maintenance calculation. The family court arrived at this net salary figure after deducting the husband’s housing and vehicle loan equated monthly instalments (EMIs), which are voluntary expenditures.

Court Observation

The high court observed three gaps in the maintenance determination.

• Only Statutory Deduction Allowed

The high court found the deduction of EMIs outgo from salary arbitrary and clarified that only statutory and compulsory deductions (such as income tax) should be considered to calculate the net salary amount. It emphasised that financial commitment aimed to create assets cannot be treated the same way as primary obligations to maintain a dependent spouse or child.

• Education Is Not Income

The second gap was related to speculation about the wife’s earning capacity, based on which the Family Court had reduced her share from Rs 10,000 to Rs 8,000 per month. The counsel of the husband informed that she (wife) holds a post-graduate degree and contended that she was “deliberately not earning”. However, the high court found this argument purely speculative. Referring to the Supreme Court precedents, the high court noted that “It is well established that mere capacity to earn is not a ground to deny or reduce maintenance.”

The court also highlighted that for a woman who has been out of the workforce for years due to matrimonial responsibilities, education does not translate into immediate self-sufficiency.

• Pensioner Parents Are Not Fully Dependent

The high court also flagged errors in how the husband’s dependents were calculated. The Family Court had divided the husband’s net income into five shares, including one for the wife and the child, each, two for the husband, and one for the husband’s mother. The high court pointed out that the husband’s mother is a pensioner, which means that her dependency is not absolute on her son, and thus, it should not be used to substantially reduce the share of the wife and minor child.

When the husband’s side argued dependency of siblings on the husband, the court held, “There is no material on record to show that the siblings of the respondent, who are major, are dependent upon him on account of any incapacity or special circumstance. In the absence of any such pleading or proof, major siblings cannot be treated as dependents for the purpose of determining maintenance.”

Court Judgment

The high court set aside the impugned judgment dated September 14, 2023, by the lower court and directed the lower court to determine the maintenance afresh.

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