Husband can`t escape maintenance by lying about income: Bombay HC

A man cannot escape from paying maintenance to his wife by lying about his income and trying to portray himself as being poor, the Bombay High Court said.

Mumbai: A man cannot escape from paying maintenance to his wife by lying about his income and trying to portray himself as being poor, the Bombay High Court observed while upholding the Rs 1.50 lakh maintenance awarded to a woman and her daughter by the family court.

Justice Roshan Dalvi was hearing an appeal filed by a man challenging the family court order directing him to pay maintenance of Rs one lakh to his wife and Rs 50,000 to their daughter. Initially in 2008, the family court had directed the man to pay maintenance of Rs 7,000 to the wife and 3,000 to the daughter. In January 2011, the wife filed a review petition in the family court submitting evidence to show that her husband was managing director of several diamond trading firms in Dubai. In July 2012, the family court increased the maintenance following which the man approached High Court. Upholding the maintenance of Rs 1.50 lakh, Justice Dalvi recently observed that in a case where the husband does not come out clean about his income or makes unbelievable and astounding claims of not possessing anything, the court should consider all evidence betraying such claims. "No court can accept a physically and mentally fit man to be in the dumps he portrays to be in," Justice Dalvi said. The husband told the High Court that he was working as an employee in a firm in Dubai and claimed to be earning Rs 15,000 each month. The wife, however, produced a mail printout sent by her husband to his father, which she had found in her matrimonial house. "The printout shows how the husband wanted his father to fabricate evidence to show his income to be Rs 15,000," the High Court noted. After going through several documents and photographs submitted by the wife, Justice Dalvi said, "The evidence clearly shows that the husband is carrying on business of diamond in various companies in Dubai." PTI