No Maintenance Without Evidence Of Valid Marriage, Testimony Of Unreliable Witnesses Cannot Be Considered: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court recently set aside an order of the Family Court at Dindigul, which had directed a man to pay monthly maintenance to his wife, after noting that there was no evidence to prove the marriage between the parties. “The points framed for determination are, therefore, answered that there is no evidence before the Court to establish that the plaintiff was the legally wedded wife of the defendant. Consequently, there is no obligation on the part of the defendant to pay maintenance to the plaintiff,” the court said. The Madurai bench of Justice CV Karthikeyan and Justice R Vijayakumar noted that the trial judge had only relied on the evidence of the witness on the plaintiff's side without considering the evidence of the defendant's witness, which gave an undue advantage to the plaintiff. The court noted that in the absence of any evidence, the court should not have placed complete reliance on the unreliable witness, and thus opined that the trial court's order was unsustainable. “We hold that the learned Trial Judge had misdirected herself in appreciating unreliable evidence to the undue advantage of the plaintiff. In the absence of any credible evidence, we are of the firm opinion that the judgment of the Trial Court is unsustainable and does not withstand appellate scrutiny. It is accordingly liable to be set aside,” the court said. The court was hearing an appeal filed by the husband against the order of the Family Court asking him to pay maintenance, on the wife's suit. The wife claimed that the duo got married in July 1973 in Dindigul, and at the time of marriage, her father had given her 100 sovereigns of gold jewellery, silver items, and other household articles worth around Rs. 15,000. She further submitted that after marriage, she was living with the husband at his house, but when the husband began to torture her and developed a relationship with other women, she was compelled to leave the matrimonial home and go to her father's house. The wife had further claimed that after her father passed away, since she was unable to maintain herself, she lodged a complaint with the Panchayat asking the husband to pay a monthly maintenance of Rs. 2,500. She submitted that the husband had been paying this maintenance till March 2009, when he stopped making payments. She submitted that though she had made multiple requests, the husband stopped making payments, following which she was forced to approach the court asking the husband to pay a sum of Rs. 5,000 as past maintenance and to further pay a sum of Rs. 2,500/ per month as maintenance. The husband, on the other hand, had denied having any relationship with the woman and specifically denied having married her. He submitted that he had married another woman in 1981, and the two also had a son. He also submitted that multiple litigations were pending between him and his sister and alleged that the present suit was filed at the instigation of his sister. Between the trial court, the plaintiff [wife] and the defendant [husband] examined two witnesses each, and the husband also marked two documents, one being the marriage certificate of his son, and second the transfer certificate of the son. The Family court noted that though the husband had initially denied having known the plaintiff wife, he had later admitted in cross examination that she was a distant relative. The court also relied on the evidence of the wife's witness, who was the husband's brother-in-law, and who had deposed that the duo lived together. The court had thus allowed the suit in favour of the wife. The High Court noted that the wife had not produced any evidence to prove the factum of marriage and thus, the entire case revolved around the oral evidence adduced by the wife and the husband. The court noted that each of the witness had deposed evidence that aligned with the case of the party who summoned them and merely denied the version put up by the opposite side. “From their testimonies, it is evident that all the four witnesses had entered the witness box with a predetermined agenda not to speak the truth under oath, but to support the case of the party who called them, even at the cost of suppressing material facts and to outrightly deny established facts,” the court noted. That being the case, the court opined that all the witnesses were discredited and were wholly unreliable. Thus, the court noted that there was no tangible, believable or credible evidence to show the factum of marriage except the oral assertions made by the brother-in-law, who was an interested witness. Thus, noting that the marriage was not established, the court opined that the husband could not be called to pay maintenance. The court, therefore, allowed the husband's appeal and set aside the order of the family court. Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. H. Lakshmi Shankar Counsel for the...

No Maintenance Without Evidence Of Valid Marriage, Testimony Of Unreliable Witnesses Cannot Be Considered: Madras High Court

Upasana Sajeev

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