Millionaire banker gets alimony notice

The Delhi High court has issued notice to a millionaire vice president of one of the richest Gulf banks, who allegedly abandoned his wife and 3-year-old daughter in India.

The Delhi High court has issued notice to a millionaire vice president of one of the richest Gulf banks, who allegedly abandoned his wife and 3-year-old daughter in India.

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The wife’s petition stated that her husband has concealed his actual income and deceived the Sessions Court to cut down the maintenance awarded to her from Rs 80,000 per month to Rs 30,000 per month.

Prabhjit Jauhar, counsel for Sunita (name changed), contended before Justice Siddharath Mridual that Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Pinki cited Sunita’s mere earning of Rs 8,000 per month, which she gets as rent for the house that she owns jointly with her mother, as the only reason to cut down her maintenance.

Sunita alleged in her petition that in February this year Metropolitan Magistrate Surya Malik Grover had awarded her Rs 80,000 per month as maintenance along with a well-furnished flat keeping in view the petitioner’s husband’s lavish standard of living.

Jauhar contended in the High Court that the ASJ denied Rs 25,000 per month for alternate accommodation as Sunita was living with her parents.

Allowing Sunita’s petition, the High court on May 12 had said the reply should be filed within weeks.

Her husband’s counsel submitted that arrears in terms of the impugned order of April 19, 2010, would be paid to the petitioner within one week.

The couple got married in November 2003 and to Dubai in August 2005. The husband became the vice-president of a reputed bank in Dubai, drawing a salary of nearly Rs 90 lakh per annum. In October 2007, the petitioner’s father suffered a heart attack and she returned to Delhi with her daughter, then one year old. Meanwhile, she claimed her husband deserted her and told her not to return to Dubai.

She then filed a domestic violence petition in December 2008. In February 2010, the Metropolitan Magistrate directed her husband to pay Rs 80,000 pm as maintenance.