"A
spouse who chooses to stay idle despite having the potential to earn cannot be
allowed to burden the other person with a one-sided responsibility to cover
expenses," the Delhi High Court said while reducing the maintenance amount
awarded to a woman.
Noting
that the wife was voluntarily working as a social worker, irrespective of being
a graduate, the court stated that maintenance provisions under the Hindu
Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA) are gender neutral.
"The
spouse having a reasonable capacity of earning but who chooses to remain
unemployed and idle without any sufficient explanation or indicating sincere
efforts to gain employment should not be permitted to saddle the other party
with one-sided responsibility of meeting out the expenses," a bench led by
Justice V Kameshwar Rao said.
The
bench further said, "The equivalence does not have to be with mathematical
precision but with the objective of providing relief to the spouse by way of
maintenance pendente lite and litigation expenses, who is unable to maintain
and support during the pendency of proceedings and to ensure that the party
should not suffer due to paucity of source of income. The provision is gender
neutral and the provisions of Section 24 & 25 of HMA provide for the
rights, liabilities and obligations arising from marriage between the parties
under HMA."
The
observations come at a time when a coordinate bench led by Justice Suresh Kumar
Kait in September had similarly interpreted the maintenance provision under
HMA, and ruled that the same is not meant to create an army of idle people
waiting for benefits to be provided by their partners.
The
high court was considering a plea filed by the husband challenging the family
court's April, 2022, order directing him to pay his wife maintenance of Rs 30,000
per month as well as litigation expenses of Rs 51,000. The family court, while
enhancing the amount, had taken into consideration the affidavit of income,
assets and expenditure, had noted that the wife had no independent source of
income.
The
husband submitted that he was directed to pay maintenance of Rs 2,000 under the
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (Domestic Violence Act), which
was later increased to Rs 30,000 under the Hindu Marriage Act without any
change in circumstances. He also mentioned that his wife was working as a
receptionist in a hospital and was earning more than Rs 25,000.