Shalu Ojha v. Prashant Ojha
Background
After their 2007 marriage broke down within months, the wife sought maintenance under Section 12 of the Domestic Violence Act; a Magistrate initially granted her Rs. 2.5 lakh per month, which an Additional Sessions Judge later reduced to Rs. 50,000 per month. The wife, appearing in person, challenged that reduction before the Supreme Court while a parallel petition on the same order was still pending in the High Court. Both sides accused each other of hiding income and assets, and the Court even attempted (unsuccessfully) to mediate a settlement and called the parties to chambers.
Decision Breakdown
The Court reviewed income affidavits filed by both parties but found the competing factual claims about undisclosed income and assets could only be properly tested through a full trial with oral evidence and cross-examination, something the summary nature of Domestic Violence Act proceedings could not provide. Rather than itself deciding the disputed enhancement, it disposed of the petition by giving the wife liberty to file a fresh maintenance application under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 or Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to be decided on full evidence, while making clear that whatever is eventually fixed cannot go below the Rs. 50,000 per month figure that had already attained finality. The husband was directed to keep paying Rs. 50,000 per month in the meantime.
Lesson Learnt
When a maintenance dispute hinges on genuinely contested facts about a spouse's real income and assets, a court may decline to resolve it on affidavits alone and instead direct the parties to a full evidentiary proceeding, while still protecting the claimant by setting a floor amount that cannot be reduced below what has already been finally decided.