Wife Can Be Denied Maintenance Upon Failure To Produce Latest Salary Slips: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that Courts can draw adverse inference of a wife's failure to produce her latest salary slips, in order to show insufficiency of income or financial hardship, to claim maintenance from husband.Justice Dr. Swarana Kanta Sharma observed,“As the primary ingredient for grant of maintenance to a wife under Section 125 Cr.P.C. – i.e. her inability to maintain herself – has not been satisfactorily proved, in absence of clear and reliable evidence of financial hardship, the claim of the wife becomes speculative and cannot be sustained.”The bench was dealing with a revision petition moved by the wife over denial of maintenance to her by the Family Court.Though the family court ordered the husband to maintain their daughter, residing in custody of the wife, it denied relief to the Petitioner stating that she concealed her real income and had failed to produce her recent salary certificate.Her salary slip of December 2016 reflected her salary as Rs. 33,052/- whereas she claimed her latest income to be Rs.10,000 per month.Before the High Court, the Petitioner argued that her services were terminated and presently, she is employed as a temporary teacher in the U.P. Government, earning a meagre salary.The husband argued that the wife's conduct is not above board, as she suppressed material facts regarding her real income from the Court.Agreeing, the High Court said,“No recent salary certificate was placed before the learned Family Court despite opportunities given by the learned Trial Court. She also did not offer any plausible explanation in the evidence for withholding recent salary details. The learned Family Court, thus rightly reached to a conclusion that such omission, without any cogent explanation, casts a doubt on the genuineness of her claim and justifies an adverse inference against her.”The husband had also sought to resist the direction to maintain their daughter, on the ground that it is excessive.The High Court however observed that the maintenance awarded to the daughter constituted roughly one-third of the husband's income and thus, could not be termed excessive. It added,“The law is settled that a child's right to maintenance is independent of the disputes between her parents, and the father is bound to maintain the children… Section 125 of the Cr.P.C is a beneficial provision, premised on a moral obligation of husband and father, and intended to prevent, inter alia, the wife and children from being subjected to the adversities of vagrancy and destitution.”Appearance: Mr. M.R. Chanchal, Advocate for Petitioners; Mr. Naresh Kumar Chahar, APP for the State with Ms. Puja Mann and Mr. Vipin Kumar Yadav, Advs. Mr. Nischaya Nigam and Mr. Akshay Handa, Advocates for R-2Case title: G v. StateCitation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1108Case no.: CRL.REV. P. 395/2022Click here to read order

Wife Can Be Denied Maintenance Upon Failure To Produce Latest Salary Slips: Delhi High Court

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