Court orders Dhananjay Munde to pay ₹2 lakh per month to first wife, daughter

Karuna Sharma had approached the court in 2022 and invoked provisions of the Protection of Woman from Domestic Violence (DV) Act, 2005, claiming she had been subjected to physical and emotional abuse during their marriage

MUMBAI: Maharashtra’s food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Munde, who has been under fire over the arrest of his aide Walmik Karad in connection with the murder of Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh in December 2024, has found himself in yet another controversy.

Court orders Dhananjay Munde to pay ₹2 lakh per month to first wife, daughter

On Tuesday, a metropolitan magistrate court in Bandra ordered the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader to pay an interim monthly maintenance of ₹2 lakh to his estranged first wife, Karuna Sharma, and their daughter, Shivani.

Sharma had approached the court in 2022 and invoked provisions of the Protection of Woman from Domestic Violence (DV) Act, 2005, claiming she had been subjected to physical and emotional abuse during their marriage. She sought a monthly maintenance amount of ₹5 lakh each for herself and her two children, Seeshiv and Shivani, and ₹25 crore as compensation.

Munde had denied that he had married Sharma and argued that the DV Act was thereby not applicable. He also denied the charges of physical and emotional abuse. Munde had also argued that that Sharma was a director in a few companies involved in the import and export of clothes. Since she had a steady source of income, she was not entitled to any maintenance, he told the court.

Metropolitan magistrate AB Jadhav, however, refused to accept Munde’s claim of the lack of domestic relations with Sharma. The court noted that in at least two documents submitted by Sharma, Munde had admitted his marriage with her. He had also listed the names of their children, Seeshiv and Shivani, as dependents in his election affidavits, the court observed.

The court ruled that the NCP leader’s denial of a marital relationship and refusal of conjugal rights itself amounted to emotional abuse and, therefore, Sharma was entitled to monthly maintenance. The court added that since their son Seeshiv was an adult, he wasn’t entitled to any maintenance from his father. But Shivani, being an unmarried daughter, was entitled to maintenance under Hindu law, the court said.

The magistrate also said that even if Sharma had a source of income, she and her children were entitled to the lifestyle enjoyed by the Maharashtra cabinet minister. The court ordered Munde to pay ₹1.25 lakh per month to Sharma and ₹75,000 per month to Shivani as a maintenance amount. He would also have to pay the amounts retrospectively from December 2022, when the DV complaint was filed.

Sharma earlier told the court that after she married Munde in January 1998, the couple stayed in Indore for a few days and then moved to Mumbai. She said the NCP leader refused to take her to his native place in Beed district, claiming that the relationship was not acceptable to his family.

The couple had two children and everything was smooth until 2018, when Munde started avoiding Sharma, she claimed. She eventually learnt that he had married another woman. When Sharma confronted Munde about his second marriage, he allegedly told her he was forced to do it because of family pressure and to maintain his public image. He, however, allegedly assured her that he would always treat her as his “first wife”.

Sharma then claimed that supporters of the NCP leader attacked her when she tried to go to his native place in Beed in November 2020. She alleged that she was subjected to physical and emotional abuse and, therefore, sought monthly maintenance and a one-time compensation.

“I was harassed through the police,” Sharma later told the media. “So, finally, I shifted to Beed. Once, I went to the district collector to file a complaint, but Dhananjay Munde and Walmik Karad were present there. Walmik Karad beat me up in the chamber of the district collector, but Munde did not stop him,” she said.

When asked that why she did not file a complaint with the Maharashtra State Commission for Women, Sharma said that Rupali Chakankar, the chairperson of the commission, was from the NCP. She added that she had filed a complaint with the National Commission for Women. She also said that the maintenance amount of ₹2 lakh per month is not enough and she would fight for more.

Following the court’s verdict, social activist Anjali Damania said that the state government should ask for Dhananjay Munde’s immediate resignation. “I am going to send a message to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy CM Ajit Pawar [demanding Munde’s resignation]. As a woman, I congratulate Karuna for fighting against Dhananjay Munde,” she said.

Damania has been demanding Munde’s resignation ever since she met Pawar last month to show him evidence she allegedly has proving the NCP minister’s close links with Karad. Earlier this week, she also accused Munde of being part of a ₹161.68 crore scam in fertilizers and agricultural equipment when he was the agriculture minister in the previous Mahayuti government.