The Bombay High Court on Tuesday sharply increased the maintenance payable by a Pune-based businessman to his divorced wife after finding that the man had concealed his financial strength and misled the court. .A Bench of Justices BP Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan raised the monthly maintenance from ₹50,000 to ₹3.5 lakh, observing that the husband’s claim of earning only ₹6 lakh a year was “farcical” given his family’s sprawling real estate and finance empire worth over ₹1,000 crore.The husband was ordered to deposit ₹42 lakh as a year's arrears within four weeks."He has not come to Court with clean hands. There is not only material suppression of his financial strength to undermine the application of legal principles for considering the quantum of maintenance, there are also positive misstatements in his claims to be a person of poor means unable to pay even the low maintenance originally granted," the Court stated..The couple married in 1997 and lived together for 16 years before separating in 2013. In February 2023, a family court at Pune granted divorce to the husband on the ground of cruelty.It fixed permanent alimony at ₹50,000 per month. Both parties appealed -the wife sought enhancement of maintenance and the husband sought cancellation of maintenance on the ground that he lacked the means to pay.While the wife argued that she was struggling to raise their daughter alone and that the husband was a “chronic defaulter” who continued to live extravagantly, the husband claimed that his income had dwindled post-COVID and that he had “already paid enough.” He also claimed that a ₹50 lakh loan given to the wife's uncle effectively compensated her maintenance dues..Rejecting his plea, the High Court said that the husband's portrayal of financial distress was “farcical.” The Bench found that his family ran multiple real estate, construction and financial services businesses with a combined worth over ₹1,000 crore and that he was publicly described as the “torchbearer” of the business group on the group’s website.“By pointing to his Income Tax Returns to show taxable income of just ₹6 lakh annually, he would have the Court believe that his lifestyle is financed by ₹50,000 per month. On the face of it, the import is farcical,” Justice Sundaresan wrote.The Court said that the husband's income tax filings and property declarations did not reflect the true extent of his wealth. His share in family enterprises, transfers of ownership among brothers and lavish personal spending all showed he was a man of considerable means."A blinkered focus on the seemingly de jure position by looking only at such assets as the family has chosen to officially leave in the hands of the husband’s Income Tax balance sheet, or just the component of the family income that the family has chosen to attribute to such family member, would be quite inappropriate, misleading and unjust.".The judgment also cited multiple examples of his affluent lifestyle — including photographs of a birthday party with “free-flowing alcohol” and luxury Kenzo T-shirts, foreign holidays to destinations such as Macau and expenses for his son’s education abroad."We must hasten to add that to our minds, there is nothing to be judgemental or inappropriate about throwing a milestone birthday party with free-flowing alcohol, or the donning of expensive top of the line luxury brand T-shirts at the party. What does not appeal to us in forming our judgement, is the act of contemporaneously lying on oath about being a man of no means, earning just Rs. 6 lakhs per annum," the Court said.It also found evidence of transfers exceeding ₹10 crore from the husbands accounts to his brother’s and noted that companies under his control delayed filing financial statements until after the family court’s verdict. It said that his claim that the family home was sold was contradicted by the continued use of that address in court documents..Thus, the family court failed to appreciate the financial power that underpinned the couple’s marital lifestyle, the Bench ruled.“She is entitled to lead a life of dignity and provide her daughter a life of dignity. A sum of ₹50,000 per month is hardly a reasonable or logical quantum of maintenance.".The Bench also pulled up the husband for his argument that a separated woman should cut down on her daughter’s extracurricular expenses for yoga, violin and baking classes. Such an argument was patriarchal, the Court stated."The contention is that a woman divorced from her husband should curtail what her daughter should get but a woman choosing not to leave her husband can expect more. That a mother dares to work hard and even claim to depend on her own brother to give the daughter (who is as much Mukesh’s offspring) a decent life, cannot be a disqualification for expecting that the daughter’s expenses for a decent standard of living be met by the father, commensurate with his own standard of living and more importantly, the parents’ joint standard of living when the marriage had lasted."Hence, it dismissed the man's appeal while enhancing the compensation payable to the divorced wife..The wife appeared in person. The husband was represented by Advocates Dushyant Purekar and Rajat Dedhia..Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.
