Representative Image

NEW DELHI: A family court rejected a Delhi resident’s claim of monthly maintenance from her estranged husband and said Sarita Vihar — where she lives — is by no means a “lower locality”. The woman, who had sought the court’s intervention for claiming the maintenance from her husband who lives in Singapore , said he lived in a “upscale colony” and was earning handsomely, whereas she was living in city’s Sarita Vihar.

Family court judge, Madhu Jain, however, found the woman to be “highly qualified” and said that the provision of law under which the wife was claiming maintenance was neither meant to “extort money”, nor to be used to “blackmail”.

“Counsel for the wife argued that the husband is living in a very upscale colony in Singapore, but this cannot be the sole criteria to award maintenance to the wife. If he is living in Singapore, he also has expenditure in Singapore dollars... whereas the locality of Sarita Vihar, New Delhi, cannot be termed as a lower locality or it is not a slum area where the applicant/wife cannot be expected to live,” the court observed.

Advocate Prabhjit Jauhar, who appeared for the husband, had told the court that though his client was living in Singapore, he had to incur expenditure in Singapore dollars. “The husband had to pay a huge amount of rent and had to incur other necessary expenditure as cost of living in Singapore was very high,” argued Jauhar.

The wife’s lawyer, on the other hand, informed the court that she was living and working in Mumbai, but coming to Delhi to attend regular court proceedings was not feasible. She, as a result, took up a job in Gurgaon and currently stays in Sarita Vihar. She had sought Rs 2.5 lakh maintenance apart from Rs 1.5 lakh as litigation cost under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act.

The provision entails that either the wife or the husband, as the case may be, has no independent income sufficient for her or his support.

“Though this application was filed by her when she was jobless for some time even after getting a job and living a decent life, she has not withdrawn this application. The present application is nothing but gross abuse of law... this provision of maintenance is being used as a legal extortion ,” the court said.

