No one obtains a post-graduate degree for the sole purpose of making a living. This is a reality of the job market today. And the courts are now full accepting the reality. A woman with high educational qualifications should not be denied maintenance from her estranged husband on the ground of her educational qualifications alone. This is the main finding of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. She studied the real economic situation. She spoke about something that is quite obvious to anybody seeking employment at this particular time. Unemployment is widespread. It is not a rule that having a higher degree or specialization will guarantee a paycheck. However, it is not a court requirement that a wife be told that she cannot receive financial assistance because she went to college.
It’s a result of a marriage that occurred in February 2011. The relationship between the couple did not work out. Wife abandoned the house in Nagpur. The husband works as a loco pilot in Central Railways. His income is good. The husband resisted the wife’s request for maintenance for the support of himself and minor daughter.The husband resisted wife’s petition for maintenance for minor daughter’s maintenance and her own maintenance. He was clearly focusing on her background in education. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also has a Masters of Arts. His case was easy to make. He said that a postgraduate educated able-bodied woman can certainly earn her living. He said he had no obligation to pay her regularly since she may be working.
Justice Joshi-Phalke had no truck with that argument. There is no question that a person could make money and not have any money to live off. Under the law, a court must consider if the woman is “unable to maintain herself. This involves considering what she has to work with in her actual, real life. It’s not about speculating on what type of work she could secure in an alternative world. The evidence was presented before the judge. Not a single thing could be found showing that the woman was working. She couldn’t be found to have made a single dime.
- Social Justice for past grievances.
The law for this is Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This particular section is not intended for the purpose of judging the faults of past relationships. It serves an extremely primitive and simple function. It is a social justice measure to avoid becoming destitute. The court emphasized that this is a rule to prevent people falling into vagrancy. It imposes a natural responsibility to provide for basic needs of survival. Food. Clothing. Shelter. This is the whole purpose of the law!
The husband sought another route around to evade the payments. He said the wife “refused to obey” an order of the court. In particular, a decree of restitution of conjugal rights. It is a directive that requires a divorced couple to reunite. The husband argued that she abandoned the premises when she did not go back to his house after this ruling, thereby giving up her right to the maintenance costs.
The judge became much more interested in what really went on between the two of them. There was a big difference, she noted, between a wife who fails to live with her husband and a wife who refuses to live with her husband. The law does provide that a wife may lose maintenance if she refuses to co-habit with her husband for an unlawful reason. However, there must be an actual offer for it to be refused. A good faith offer can never be refused.
Actions Show True Intentions.
The court ignored the form and only considered the substance of the action. There was indeed a decree taken for “restitution of conjugal rights.” However the judge said it was the wife who had been trying to resume the relationship. It appeared the husband had no intention of taking the wife back. He did not issue any formal notices to her to come home. He never showed anything to the court that he was really ready to make the effort to live with her again and provide for her.
But what he did in other ways revealed his intentions. In fact he even filed for divorce. He didn’t try to do a single thing to reunite the family before doing this. Justice Joshi-Phalke noted that haste to file the divorce petition speaks volumes about the fact that the marriage is not going to be sustained. If there’s no intention to make the arrangement work, a hollow request to get back home is worthless. The court decided that the husband’s conduct constituted legal “refusal and neglect. The failure of the wife to return to a home to which she was not welcome did not therefore deprive her of her right to financial support.
The Final Financial Calculation
There are a number of dynamic factors that need to be considered when determining the actual maintenance amount. The court will have to consider the social status of both individuals. Their lifestyle. Their financial background. The judge analysed the husband’s recent tax returns in the 2022 fiscal year. The documents showed that he was getting a salary of approximately ₹85,000 per month. He also had to make certain pay deductions and take care of his widowed mother. The court took into account his responsibilities versus the wife’s complete lack of income.
He had been ordered to pay maintenance by a lower court. The husband had filed a revision application in the high court hoping to get that order tossed out or reduced. Justice Joshi-Phalke granted his application by adjusting the final payment structure but stuck to the main thrust of the application that he pay.
