RAIPUR: The Raipur district administration has initiated the process of attaching the properties of a Chhattisgarh-based businessman for non-payment of maintenance of Rs 1.3 lakhs per month to his estranged wife and minor children.

The process was initiated following the receipt of the “warrant of attachment of immovable property’ by the Judicial Magistrate first class, Vashi court, Belapur, Navi Mumbai in June 2014. Confirming that the process for the attachment of the properties of the “defaulter” husband had been initiated, District Collector, Raipur, Thakur Ram Yadav, said Tehsildar, Raipur, has been directed carry out the court’s orders.

The process began soon after the Bombay High Court dismissed the husband’s petition in October last week, challenging the Navi Mumbai Magistrate’s order directing him to pay Rs 1.3 lakh monthly maintenance for his wife and two minor girls. Justice M L Tahaliyani of the Bombay High Court had also wrapped the husband for not disclosing his true income.

The HC had refused to interfere with the lower court’s order on grounds that it could be fixed by the court based on the husband's possible and discernible income. The lower court had directed the husband to pay Rs 1 lakh as monthly maintenance to his estranged wife and daughters under the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (DV) Act and to pay Rs 30,000 as monthly rent for their house.

Interestingly, while hearing the petition, the HC had observed that the husband was clearly “scheming and avoiding disclosure of his true sources of income and his true income to frustrate a genuine claim of his wife and children". The couple had reportedly married in 1997 and the husband filed for divorce on grounds of cruelty in 2003 in Delhi.

The Supreme Court had transferred the petition to Bandra family court. In 2010, the wife, staying separate since 2004 filed a DV case in Navi Mumbai where she resides.

According to reports, in a bid to wriggle out from paying high maintenance, the husband, a director in a steel company, had produced orders of an appellate commissioner of income tax in the HC showing that his income of Rs 27 crore had reduced to Rs 4 crore for assessment year 2001-2002. In addition the husband, while claiming that he was unable to pay the Rs 1.3 lakh maintenance, also produced a company’s resolution in 2013, claiming that his annual salary had dropped to Rs 6 lakhs from the earlier Rs 24 lakhs.

However, the HC observed that it was obvious that the income shown in the I-T returns and salary, based on the resolution did not appear to be the husband's real income”. The court observed, “It need not be mentioned here that income disclosed in the I-T returns is not always the correct income of a person. The court has powers to determine the income of the husband on the basis of records placed before it and to determine a just and proper amount as maintenance to be paid to the aggrieved person.''

In his order Justice Tahaliyani also stated, “an order of maintenance under Section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc) or under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, can be passed on the basis of palpable income of the husband. Section 125 of CrPc provides for maintenance to a wife, children, parents.

