Deepa Joshi v. Gaurav Joshi
Background
The appellant-wife and respondent-husband married in May 2023, but within a year the marriage broke down, and the wife left the matrimonial home alleging neglect and harassment, ending up with no independent source of income. She sought maintenance of Rs. 50,000 per month before the Family Court at Champawat, which awarded her only Rs. 8,000 per month (proceedings went ex parte as the husband did not appear), largely because it heavily discounted the husband's salary based on deductions for loan repayments. On revision, the Uttarakhand High Court enhanced this to Rs. 15,000 per month, but the wife appealed to the Supreme Court arguing this still did not reflect her husband's true income, a Manager at Canara Bank earning a gross monthly salary of Rs. 1,15,670.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court reaffirmed settled principles that maintenance is meant to prevent destitution and enable a wife to live with dignity, and must be fair and commensurate with the husband's real financial capacity, not illusory. It held that deductions from salary on account of loan repayments that go towards asset creation or acquisition are essentially voluntary capital investments, not unavoidable expenditure, and cannot be allowed to substantially dilute a husband's real earning capacity or take precedence over his primary, continuing legal obligation to maintain his spouse. Balancing the wife's lack of independent income against the need not to impose an excessive burden on the husband, the Court enhanced the maintenance from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 25,000 per month, with any arrears to be cleared within three months and future payments due by the 7th of each month.
Lesson Learnt
When courts calculate maintenance, a spouse's voluntary loan repayments that build up their own assets cannot be treated as essential expenses to shrink their apparent income: the duty to maintain a spouse is a primary legal obligation that takes priority over such discretionary financial commitments.