Dear Editor
Two important judgments have come out in the week. Beg, borrow or steal, it is the duty of man to maintain his family and in the event of estrangement of wife, the man is liable to pay the maintenance amount to his ex-wife as determined and fixed by the court. All previous judgments say more or less the same thing. But in a groundbreaking verdict, the Bombay High Court upholds an order directing the wife to pay monthly maintenance amount of Rs.10,000/- to unemployed husband facing health issues. The order of the lower court was challenged by the petitioner wife in the High Court. The court has thrown light on Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which employs the term “spouse” to include both husbands and wives. As per this Section, either party can seek maintenance during marital dispute proceedings if they are unable to eke out a living. If one of the spouses is unable to lead a life, the other spouse who is financially sound is liable to support the spouse who is incapable of leading a life. The petitioner’s contention that she is unable to afford the maintenance since she has to provide for home loan repayment and the upbringing of a minor child, along side her resignation from employment as reasons for financial incapacity was not accepted. The lawyer of the husband questioned how these expenses can be met without a disclosed source of income. The court considered the plea of the husband through his lawyer and found that the petitioner had not disclosed her source of income to meet the expenses related to home loan payment and upbringing of the minor. During the cross examination, the advocate of the petitioner could have elicited the information from petitioner with regard to the sources and the quantum of income to maintain herself and her child besides honouring her commitments. He should have insisted for documentary support for her statement also concerning the source of income. Here, the advocate of the petitioner has also failed in presenting the case properly. If the source and quantum of income had been made known to the court, the court would have been enabled to enhance, reduce, confirm or cancel the already fixed maintenance amount in the lower court. The contention that she did not disclose the source of income would have been valid if the husband’s lawyer insisted for it with documentary evidence and the petitioner had failed to produce it. It is certainly not against the principles of natural justice to order for maintenance amount to be paid to the husband when he is financially incapacitated. But the husband’s lawyer has erred in not asking for documentary evidence with regard to her source and quantum of income.
In another judgment delivered by the Karnataka High Court, it has been ruled that husband with 75 per cent disability cannot be directed to pay maintenance to estranged wife. The court has noted that the husband walks with the help of crutches. First of all, leaving the husband with high disability per se cruel. A man or woman with 75 per cent disability cannot be atrocious against the other. In a situation of this kind, asking disabled person to pay maintenance to the other, is unjust. The court has delivered a judgment that can be set as a precedent to the future cases. A judgment may serve as precedent to future cases but it cannot be a law unless it is made a law in the appropriate law making Houses. Law is the road on which the vehicles of judgments have to move. The decisions of the courts are (to be) based on the provisions of the laws. Laws must be unambiguous. The courts should not find them difficult in interpreting the laws. When the laws are ambiguous and the ambiguity leads to court’s own interpretations and if such interpretations are valuable, the government should not hesitate to amend the Act incorporating the ruling given by the court as part of law and make them free from ambiguity. Infirmity in laws leads for judicial activism or judicial overreach.
K.V. Seetharamaiah
