The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court recently ordered a man to pay Rs 18 lakh in arrears - monthly maintenance of Rs 15,000 each to his wife and daughter - from 2015. The HC dismissed a plea filed by the man challenging the orders of a family court that rejected his challenge to the monthly maintenance amount.
A bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Sanjay Mehare noted that the man had not paid the compensation amounts to his wife and now 14-year-old daughter since 2015 despite 19 orders being passed by the HC, as well as the lower court, ordering him to make the payments.
The judges noted that the man had suppressed several important facts from the family court, especially facts pertaining to his financial condition.
“Before the family court, the appellant (husband) consistently took a false stand that he was a labourer and it is only after the wife brought details about his profession and annual income as well as immovable properties, that his act of suppressing the income and suppressing his profession was exposed,” the judges noted.
The bench further noted that the man owned a few immovable properties apart from his agricultural land parcels, but didn’t show them on record before the court.
“What we can see from the conduct of the husband, even before us, is that he has not placed before us a complete set of his annual assessment income-tax returns so as to know his gross income from his profession for a particular year,” the bench noted further, adding that he had shown large payments to his parents and outsiders and as a part of business expenses, the taxable income was attempted to be reduced.
“The total amount granted by the family court to the wife and the 14-year-old daughter is Rs 30,000 per month, which would be Rs 3,60,000 per year, which appears to be about 15 per cent of the income that we can assess from the skeletal record placed before us,” the bench said, adding, “What we find from his conduct is that he had made specific efforts, and probably deliberately and intentionally, to suppress his profession and his gross income, even from this court.”
“It is said that the wife is litigating for monthly maintenance since 2015, the proceedings filed in the year 2015 were finally adjudicated in January 2021, during which period the wife did not receive the regular maintenance from the husband,” the judges noted.
“In view of the above, the husband admits that he is in arrears of payment of maintenance for an amount of almost Rs 18 lakh,” the judges noted while ordering him to make the requisite payments.
