Ex-Wives Can’t Demand Lifestyle Matching Husbands’ Growth, Says SC
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The court opined that if the husband is doing better in life post his separation, then to ask him to always maintain the status of the wife as per his own changing status would be putting a burden on his own personal progress
The bench of Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra was dealing with a revision petition filed by a woman seeking an increase in the maintenance amount granted by the family court.
The Supreme Court on December 19 noted on the issue of permanent alimony in matrimonial disputes the tendency of parties seeking maintenance or alimony as an equalisation of wealth with the other party.
“The wife is entitled to be maintained as far as possible in a manner that is similar to what she was accustomed to in her matrimonial home while the parties were together. But once the parties have separated, it cannot be expected of the husband to maintain her as per his present status all his life,” the bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh said.
The court also opined that if the husband has moved ahead and is fortunately doing better in the life post his separation, then to ask him to always maintain the status of the wife as per his own changing status would be putting a burden on his own personal progress.
“We wonder, would the wife be willing to seek an equalisation of wealth with the husband if due to some unfortunate events post-separation, he has been rendered a pauper?” the bench asked.
It emphasised that there is no fixed formula for calculating maintenance amount; instead, it should be based on a balanced consideration of various factors.
Among others, the bench said the duration of the marriage would also be a relevant factor to be taken into consideration while assessing the permanent alimony to be paid to the wife.
Apart from the issue of alimony, court also cautioned women involved in matrimonial disputes to exercise discretion, reminding them that stringent legal provisions meant for their welfare should not be misused as tools to chastise, threaten, domineer or extort from their husbands.
A bench observed that the provisions in the criminal law are for the protection and empowerment of women but sometimes are used by certain women more for purposes they are never meant for.
“In recent times, the invocation of Sections 498A, 376, 377, 506 of the IPC as a combined package in most of the complaints related to matrimonial disputes is a practice which has been condemned by this Court on several occasions. In certain cases, the wife and her family tend to use a criminal complaint with all the above serious offences as a platform for negotiation and as a mechanism and a tool to get the husband and his family to comply with their demands, which are mostly monetary in nature,” the bench said.
The apex court made the observations while dealing with a matrimonial dispute in which the woman sought transfer of cases filed by the husband, who, on the other hand, sought divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage.
The parties in the case got married on July 31, 2021, after contacting each other on a matrimonial site. It was a second marriage for both the husband and the wife. The husband was a citizen of the United States of America and was in the business of Information Technology consultancy services and the wife was a postgraduate in finance and had studied naturopathy and yogic sciences.
However, within one year, the cases were filed by the parties against each other. The wife also filed an FIR in Pune under Sections 354, 376, 377, and 498A of the IPC among others against the husband and his octogenarian father. The husband was arrested from the international airport in Mumbai on December 25, 2022, and was released on January 21, 2023, after almost one month in custody.
Before the apex court, the wife opposed the plea for dissolution of marriage and at the same time demanded a huge sum of money as alimony.
Considering the issue of criminal proceedings between spouses and their impact on marital ties, the bench said sometimes, this is done in a fit of rage after a marital dispute, while at times it is a planned strategy in other cases.
“Unfortunately, it is not just the parties who are involved in this abuse of the process of law. They are understandably fuelled by the emotions of the situation. But other stakeholders also worsen the situation as they may often devise such crafty strategies for the women to adopt such arm-twisting tactics for their ulterior motive,” the bench said.
The bench further pointed out that the police personnel are sometimes quick to jump into action in selective cases and arrest the husband or even their relatives, including aged and bedridden parents and grandparents of the husband. The trial courts are hesitant in granting bail to the accused persons being swayed by the “gravity of the offences” mentioned in the FIR.
“The collective effect of this chain of events is often overlooked by the actual individual players involved therein, which is that even minor disputes between husband and wife tend to snowball into ugly prodigious battles of ego and reputation and washing dirty linen in public, eventually leading to the relationship turning sour to the extent that there remains no possibility of a reconciliation or cohabitation,” the bench said.
In the case on hand, the court felt that both the parties unfortunately failed to adhere to the marital oath, making it safe to conclude that the marriage had completely failed. Apart from the irreconcilable status of the relationship between the parties, in the present case, another factor that had weighed in favour of the exercise of the power under Article 142(1) was that there was no child born out of the wedlock and therefore, any direction to allow the parties to part ways could only affect the parties themselves and not any innocent child, the bench said.
The court said, “If the ingredients of sub-section (1) of Section 13B of HMA are established by both spouses, it has to be construed as an instance of irretrievable breakdown of marriage inasmuch as the parties in unison state that there has been an actual separation between them for a period of one year or more and they have not been able to live together and they have mutually agreed that the marriage should be dissolved”.
The bench emphasised that the court only needs to be satisfied on three key aspects: that the marriage was solemnised between the parties, the averments in the petitions are true, and the consent was given freely by both parties without any coercion or undue influence.
In the instant case, the petitioner-wife had stated that the respondent-husband was a man of means with a net worth of Rs 5,000 crore with multiple businesses and properties in the USA and in India and that he had paid his first wife at least Rs 500 crore upon separation, excluding a house in Virginia, USA.
Thus, she claimed permanent alimony commensurate to the status of the respondent-husband and on the same principles as was paid to the first wife of the respondent. The husband on the contrary agreed to pay a sum between Rs 20-40 lakh as the parties hardly lived together for three to four months.
“We have serious reservations with the tendency of parties seeking maintenance or alimony as an equalisation of wealth with the other party…But the petitioner-wife in the instant case has sought equalisation of status not just with the respondent-husband but also with the ex-wife of the respondent. In our opinion, this cannot be an acceptable approach,” the bench said.
The bench noted that in the instant case, the Family Court at Pune had assessed Rs 10 crores as the quantum of permanent alimony that petitioner could be entitled to. “We accept the said finding,” the court said.
It accordingly granted the woman an additional amount of Rs 2 crore for buying another flat by directing her to vacate two flats of her father-in-law in Pune and Bhopal occupied by her.
