From Insta ‘likes’ to quick commerce deliveries, warring couples gather digital ammo to slug it out in court

At a time when people choose to amplify their lives on social media, a person’s digital footprint becomes evidence for divorce lawyers to draw up their character sketch before the family court

MUMBAI: A woman checked into a five-star hotel and posted her “wonderful check-in experience” on social media. She followed it up with a Google review of the patisserie there. The online posts, not quite out of the ordinary, may not have garnered a staggering number of views but they certainly caught the eye of her estranged husband’s lawyers who brought them up in court to discredit her claim of living modestly and seeking interim maintenance from her husband.

From Insta ‘likes’ to quick commerce deliveries, warring couples gather digital ammo to slug it out in court

Her lawyer then had to painstakingly convince the court that she was hoping to activate an income stream through the online reviews.

At a time when people choose to amplify their lives on social media, a person’s digital footprint becomes evidence for divorce lawyers to draw up their character sketch before the family court. Although, not the only determining factor in such cases, lawyers have noted the trend of one’s behaviour on social media playing out in cases of divorce, alimony and child custody in recent years.

Social media ‘likes’, bank statements, even quick commerce deliveries for food and other household goods have been used by warring spouses to dent each other’s claims in matrimonial disputes, said advocate Vandana Shah, author of ‘The Ex-Files’.

Sample this: Last year, in a dispute over the payment of maintenance to his estranged wife, the Bombay High Court (HC) took note of pictures highlighting a wealthy businessman’s Kenzo T-shirt, his extravagant birthday bash and trips to Macau to foil his claim of penury. But this cuts both ways, Shah said. The eagerness of some women to post pictures of their gourmet dinners and matcha runs could hurt their alimony prospects too. “You can’t claim you are living hand-to-mouth and have six matchas a day and post about it on social media,” said Shah.

Online footprints are also used to support claims of adultery, she said. “Often people’s fake or misleading profiles on dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge have been used to support allegations of infidelity. Some married men have profiles proclaiming them to be ‘single’ while they may still be married, or ‘divorced’ even as their divorce proceedings may not have concluded,” said Shah. If not adultery, she said, it can certainly be used to back allegations of “cruelty”.

Shah cited the example of a client whose husband once bar-hopped from Juhu to Bandra, posing with different women and leaving a digital trail on his Instagram account, which his wife screenshotted to use against him in court. There are also cases where a man’s ‘likes’ on other women’s posts or shared pictures standing too close to them, are used to illustrate the narrative of infidelity.

Kranti Sathe, a prominent family court lawyer with a practice of over three decades, said certain allegations based on social media content are further scrutinised by the court. A man may not post about his income on social media but his profile on his company website may name him among senior employees. “This can be relied on in court but also has to be proved either with documents from the company or his income tax returns,” said Sathe. “Everything will be looked at with suspicion,” she said, and if he is found lying or misguiding, the court may certainly draw an inference “about his conduct, if not about his income,” said Sathe. “Sometimes it gets complicated but there are ways of reaching the truth,” she said.

Sathe explained that unlike criminal law, where the prosecution has to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, in cases of matrimonial disputes, the “preponderance of probability” carries weight.

“It’s a Catch-22 situation,” said lawyer Shaili Muzoomdar. On the one hand, people wish to appear successful on LinkedIn and glamorous on Instagram, but wish to carry the exact opposite image in court to avoid or to seek alimony. For some, social media may be integral to climb the social ladder, said Sathe, and for others it may be integral to their occupation but the wisest, almost every family court lawyer agrees, are those who lay low.

“A character sketch can easily be made based on social media posts. It may not be accurate but it can certainly be used to prejudice someone,” said Muzoomdar. “So, I tell my clients not to go around or post about their flashy new car.” Shah added that couples parting ways need to refrain from sharing their “revenge bod” pictures or other “depression overcoming luxuries”.

Cases before the family court are driven by egos and emotionality and rarely by practicality, said advocate Amit Karkhanis. He shared the case of his client, whose husband earned handsomely in a shipping company but claimed he could not pay maintenance. His Facebook profile of beers with friends, watching the IPL in the stadium, however, told a different story.

“While today the court takes cognisance of a person’s digital footprint, a stage may come when it will be the most important, or the primary evidence in a case,” said Shah.