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Reema Salkan v. Sumer Singh Salkan

Criminal Appeal · 2018 INSC 867Decided 25 Sept 2018
Criminal Appeal No. 1220 of 2018
Chief Justice Dipak Misra · Justice A.M. Khanwilkar · Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud

Background

The appellant-wife and respondent-husband married in 2002, but the marriage broke down quickly after the Canada-based husband returned abroad without taking his wife with him. The wife sought maintenance under Section 125 CrPC in 2003; after prolonged litigation (including an earlier trip to the Supreme Court over interim maintenance), the Family Court in 2015 granted her Rs.10,000/month only up to December 2010 and nothing thereafter, a decision the Delhi High Court partly modified to award Rs.9,000/month from December 2010 onward "until further orders." The wife appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the quantum fixed was too low given the husband's qualifications and past earnings.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that both the Family Court and High Court had correctly found the husband liable to maintain his educated but unemployed wife, since an able-bodied, highly qualified person cannot escape his maintenance obligation merely by claiming unemployment without proof. However, it held the High Court's method, pegging maintenance to Delhi's "minimum wage" for an MBA-qualified individual, was unduly low. Considering the husband's actual past Canadian salary (over Rs.1,77,364/month in 2010), his conduct in protracting litigation for over a decade, and the interim maintenance of Rs.20,000/month already found justified by the Court in 2014, the Court enhanced maintenance to Rs.20,000/month from January 2010, rising to Rs.25,000/month from June 2018 onward, and directed payment within eight weeks after adjusting past deposits.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not let an able-bodied, well-qualified spouse avoid maintenance obligations by a bare, unsubstantiated claim of unemployment; actual or provable earning capacity, not an artificial minimum-wage floor, governs the quantum of maintenance.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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