SOURCE- https://www.indianexpress.com/news/wife-hits-jackpot-gets-rs-75-000-as-maintenance/777698/2
A city court has ordered an expatriate, working in merchant navy, to pay a sum of Rs 75,000 as monthly maintenance to his estranged wife.
"Seeing the status of the husband who is in the Merchant Navy and is earning in lakhs, and also keeping in view the status of the parties, I grant an interim maintenance of Rs 75,000 per month to her," Additional Sessions Judge Renu Bhatnagar said in her order.
The court's order came on cross appeals by Delhi resident Sonu Sirohi and her husband Pushpender Sirohi challenging a magisterial court order which had dismissed the woman's plea in July 2010, seeking maintenance.
The magisterial court had dismissed the plea mistaking that she was already being paid maintenance.
While Sonu moved the court challenging the magisterial court order, her husband sought modification of the ground on which his wife's plea had been dismissed.
The woman told the court that though her husband had been giving her a monthly maintenance of Rs 1.20 lakh, he gradually reduced it to Rs 80,000 and then to Rs 40,000 a month and then suddenly stopped it.
Pushpender said he had been giving a maintenance of Rs 1.20 lakh a month to Sonu during 1997- 2005 but reduced it to Rs 80,000 after she forcibly entered one of his houses given on rent and took it in her possession, causing a monthly loss of Rs 60,000 to him.
The husband said he further reduced Sonu's maintenance to Rs 40,000 after she, misusing a general power of attorney given by him, transferred his house worth Rs 3 crore at Noida in her mother's name.
He said he stopped giving her any maintenance from December 2009 after his father-in-law took Rs 11 lakh from him to buy a property on the promise that he would be made a co-owner in it, but it was never fulfilled.
The man pleaded with the sessions court to incorporate his reasons for stopping maintenance to his wife.
Seeking maintenance, Sonu told the court Pushpender had been earning handsomely in foreign currency as a merchant navy executive for the last 20 years and has an NRI status.
Sonu said she was engaged in an e-commerce business but she was not earning more than Rs 35,000 annually, while Pushpender, despite being paid Rs 60,000 as educational expenses by his company, had stopped funding education of their three children.
After hearing both the parties, the session court set aside the magisterial court order saying it had mistakenly dismissed Sonu's plea and ordered Pushpender to pay Rs 75,000 per month as maintenance to his estranged wife.
