Delhi HC rejects wife’s plea seeking enhanced alimony after separation

The court, while deciding the quantum, took note of the couple marrying in a five-star hotel on December 6, 2019, going to Maldives for their honeymoon, the husband’s bank statements and concluded that both belonged to a higher middle-class society

Couples who tend to show affluence before marriage pretend to be paupers after separation, the Delhi high court said while rejecting a plea by the wife seeking enhanced alimony from her husband after they parted ways in 2020 within 10 months of marriage.

The wife had approached the Delhi high court seeking an enhancement of monthly maintenance to Rs.2 lakh from Rs.25,000 (Representative Photo)

“We find that before marriage, each party has a tendency to depict their affluence and claim an exaggerated amount of income, but unfortunately, the day disputes arise between them, their incomes suddenly flounder, and they both pretend to have become paupers without any steady source of income,” said a bench of justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna.

“Despite that, they both continue to have a similar standard of living from the sources which are unknown or are loans from friends and family, of which no details are forthcoming,” the court further held.

The order passed on October 11 came on the wife’s plea challenging a family court’s July 28 order directing the husband to pay her Rs.25,000 as alimony per month.

The court, while deciding the quantum, took note of the couple marrying in a five-star hotel on December 6, 2019, going to Maldives for their honeymoon, the husband’s bank statements and concluded that both belonged to a higher middle-class society.

The wife had approached the high court seeking an enhancement of monthly maintenance to Rs.2 lakh from Rs.25,000.

The wife, appearing through advocate Ruchi Munja, contended that she had no income and had been unemployed since she was working as a Chartered Accountant (CA) but had left her job in June 2022.

The husband on the other hand, appearing through advocate Sunil Mittal, argued that his wife was granted much more maintenance than she was entitled to as she was not only highly qualified but was working till June 2022 and was also a sleeping partner in her father’s firm.

He also submitted that his monthly expenditure was equivalent to his income, and the unjustified amounts that his wife was claiming under different proceedings reflected her intent to harass her husband.