Bombay High Court Considers Businessman's "Luxury Lifestyle" Enhances Wife's Maintenance From ₹50K To ₹3.5 Lakh

The Bombay High Court recently enhanced a woman's monthly maintenance from Rs 50 thousand to Rs 3.50 lakhs after noting that her businessman husband from Pune along with his two sons, lived a lavished lifestyle while the divorced wife, who spent 16 years with him, now struggles to earn Rs 1 lakh a month and take care of herself and her daughter.A division bench of Justices Burgess Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan noted that the husband Mukesh Gada, a real estate businessman misled the Family Court in Pune that he earned only Rs 50 thousand per month and heavily relief on his Income Tax Returns (ITR) which the judges said did not reflect the true 'standard of living' and 'assets' of the husband. "Mukesh's approach to Court with unclean hands; the scale of expenses he indicates were incurred on the family during the 16-year married life; the expenses projected by Purvi (wife); also factoring in that Purvi has been working hard as a private tutor to make ends meet; factoring in inflation; and also discounting the fact that the daughter is of the age of majority and yet would need significant resources to get a good professional education which could soon make her independent financially too, in our opinion, it would be appropriate that Purvi is given further maintenance in a further sum of Rs.3 lakhs per month, over and above the maintenance of Rs. 50,000 per month granted in the Impugned Judgement. In other words, Purvi shall be entitled to an aggregate monthly maintenance in the sum of Rs. 3,50,000 per month," the judges said in the order pronounced on November 10.The bench took note of the fact that Mukesh was the 'torchbearer' of the huge 'Gaga Group' which ran several businesses along with his two brothers and father. The couple (Mukesh and Purvi) lived together for 16 years and had two sons and a daughter from their marriage. The judges noted from the record that Mukesh claimed that his annual salary is merely Rs 6 lakh while most part of the family's assets is owned by his father and brothers. They further took into account the contention that Mukesh took educational loan for his son's education and even his brothers funded for the same.However, from the material brought on record by Purvi and also the information available on internet, Mukesh earned more than what he claimed on oath.Indian Business Families And Its Members' IncomeIn their 41-page judgment, the judges emphasised that in family businesses, particularly in India, business operations are run by the male family members working as a collective unit to reap benefits from their professional activity."In this endeavour, their personal lives are supported and underwritten by their spouses, who may marginally get some role like a hobby rather than as a professional employment in these businesses. It is the benefits enjoyed in the course of running of such businesses by such male family members that fund their social and family lives and lifestyles. Therefore, when considering the financial capacity of such a male family member and indeed, the standard of living and personal dignity that such family member's spouse would get over a decade and a half of married life, it must be remembered that what makes it to the personal income-tax returns of the specific family member as 'taxable income' is not the sole determinant of what is earned and enjoyed by such family member," the judges observed. The allocation of income, profitability and net worth among the constituents of a family is a measure that families can entirely arrange, manage and contrive, the bench said, adding that when one examines cases where a party to a divorce litigation is a male member of a family running a composite family business, the approach has to also factor in the aforesaid facet, in sharp distinction to the approach in divorce cases involving, say, an employed professional whose day job would fund or part-fund the married couple's lifestyle, standard of living and social standing."Spouses, in particular housewives, who marry a constituent of a family, marry into the family. When that family runs a family business, the intricately and inextricably interwoven nature of the husband's financial interests with the wider interests of the family cannot be lost sight of. Courts would need to look at the de facto position as to how a husband was financing his lifestyle during marriage and juxtapose that with how he is financing his lifestyle after marriage, and then draw inferences. A blinkered focus on the seemingly de jure position by looking only at such assets as the family has chosen to officially leave in the hands of the husband's Income Tax balance sheet, or just the component of the family income that the family has chosen to attribute to such family member, would be quite inappropriate, misleading and unjust," the judges said. The judges therefore held that in such cases, the courts must not ignore other attendant circumstances that speak about such a man's social...

Bombay High Court Considers Businessman's "Luxury Lifestyle" Enhances Wife's Maintenance From ₹50K To ₹3.5 Lakh

Narsi Benwal

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