Maintainence case filed by wife
5 years ago
I am a resident of bhopal and got married in 2011. On 22.02.16 my wife left home along with my 3 year old son.I approached the local counselling centre and we had 2 counselling sessions.Though the counsellor tried to persuade her to not spoil marital relations she adamant said that she will file a divorce petition.(Though she initially tried to file a case under 498 a in the police station eventually she decided to abstain from it). Immediately afterwards i.e. in Apr 16 she filed a case under 125 crpc at family court jabalpur.I came to know about it only in Dec 16 when a notice for appearance in court was sent to my address through local police staff.However I did not receive the notice as I was not home. Afterwards i.e. in Jan 16 I filed an RCR in Bhopal court but the notice was unserved due to change of address.Matter again went back burner for one and half year and yesterday only I received a notice at my office address for hearing on 16.05.18 i.e tomorrow.Kindly guide me as to what shd be my next course of action.Can I skip this hearing ? If yes what are the probabilities of an Exparte decision..Further to add a few things here as per my knowledge the opponent lawyer had got orders issued from court on almost monthly basis for issuance of notice ever since the case was filed but actually the notice was dispatched/served to me only twice i.e. in Dec 16 and yesterday.....Also in the recent instance I have not received the notice directly and the notice was received in the dak section of my higher office where I was previously posted and acknowledgement attached to the notice has also not been sent (It's with me infact) and I received the notice from the concerned person who was sent to collect the dak from higher office without putting my signature anywhere.....Further my surname and designation were incorrectly mentioned in the notice....All I am trying to say is whether these anomalies will give me any protection in court if I skip this hearing and what will be the approach of court now on and what may be the possible reasons for such long delay in initiating proceedings......What shd be my next step...Will the court go for counselling....She had demanded a maintenance amt of 18000 and my take home after housing loan which is not reflected in salary slip is 18000......Will maintenance be ordered despite the fact that she has left on her own without sufficient grounds ( In counsellor's report it is mentioned that it's the wife who doesn't want to stay inside marital relationship though the husband still wants to continue in the relationship).I wanna resolve the issue and bring her back as I still have soft corner for her ...Please help me out
If your wife has asked for maintenance under CrPC 125, here's your chance to learn everything about how to fight and deny or reduce maintenance under CrPC 125
1. Husband’s EMI towards house to be considered in CrPC 125 Maintenance to wife – SC Judgment
This is somewhat old judgment of Supreme Court, and it brings an important consideration which was overlooked by lower courts: Which was neglecting to consider monthly EMI paid by husband towards housing loan.
The order reduced maintenance amount from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,000 p.m. While this may cause cheers to readers, it should be noted that the in-hand salary of husband is Rs 9,000 p.m, so effectively he has to now survive on Rs 4,000 p.m. Somehow the facts of the case don’t add up for me. There must be more to it than the numbers mentioned in the judgment.
The logic of going for an EMI of 21K on a salary of 35K itself seems questionable. Surely reducing maintenance might be considered a sacred goal by many husbands, but taking such huge loan thereby living on the edge is probably not for everyone. Also, from facts of the case, husband has already accumulated huge arrears of maintenance, probably hoping that one day a higher court will reduce his maintenance to some very low amount. While an optimistic view is good in life, one should assess risk vs reward in these matters. Accumulating arrears in maintenance is a high risk thing, because there is no guarantee the higher courts may reduce the maintenance drastically. Further, one has to live with that uncertainty for a long time running around in courts, so best strategy should be to reduce interim maintenance right from the start, at trial court level.
2. MP HC denies maintenance to wife on her CrPC 125 appeal
We have this very recent judgment of Madhya Pradesh High Court which denied maintenance to wife under CrPC 125 on her appeal to HC since the court agreed with trial court’s observations that according to evidence led by husband and also wife’s own admissions, it was the wife who was not staying with him out of her own freewill.
The judgment is actually not very significant, since both evidence by way of letters of husband and wife’s own admissions proved that there was no maltreatment, and in practical cases such evidence, and wife’s own admissions are very rarely seen. Also the wife didn’t appear in HC at all for her own appeal. If any husband is lucky enough to have this kind of evidence (and a wife who admits in court to her faults ) , of course they can make full use of it! This was how usage of CrPC 125 was intended to be, but after passing of laws like DV Act combined with the so-called ‘women empowerment’ trend, most of the time interim maintenance is granted based merely on allegations and the fact that wife is not staying with husband.
3. Qualified wife can’t sit idle and claim maintenance: Mumbai family court
Important part of judgment below:
Mental Abuse and Harassment by Mother in law
Marriage and police related problem
Staying at husband house after court ordered monthly maintenance
Husband and wife problem
Sapinda relationship
