Vijay (other) 13 July 2014

Interim maintenance defense strike off

My file has filed divorce about 5 years back and asked for interim maintenance under HMA24 . The court asked me to pay maintenance to her retrospectively with total amount exceeding 6 lakhs.Please note that my spouse is working and has a salary of 15k/month and lives with her parents. We have no kids. No payment was made for first few months as I was changing lawyers, the opposition lawyer asked the judge to put a defense strike off order till complete payment is made. The order was passed against me by the court.

Since then I have paid about 60% of the arrears and I am paying something on every date. I brought to the court's notice that my wife has changed jobs and hasn't told the court and her new salary needs to be provided.

My issue is the court is not starting the divorce trial till the entire interim maintenance amount is paid. Defense strike off is hampering me from bringing new evidence of information against her. Are there any judgements which i can produce to convince the court to remove the defense strike off as I am regularly paying now.

Any other strategy to remove defense strike off is appreciated.

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3 Replies

T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate (Advocate) 14 July 2014

Did the court strike off the defense on its own or on an application by the opposite side? because there is no provision to strike off the defense in Hindu Marriage act for this reason and the court cannot act on a oral or verbal request by the other side. Without knowing that if at all there is an order passed by the court in this regard, it will be difficult to render you an opinion for further legal course of action, clarify this issue and come back to this forum with more details.

Vijay (other) 15 July 2014

The lawyer of my wife had filed an application to strike off my defense.

T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate (Advocate) 15 July 2014

Even in the absence of a provision in the Hindu Marriage Act for striking off the defence in case one of the parties refuses to comply with the order of the court, there is inherent power in the court to pass such order as are necessary for the ends of justice or to prevent the abuse of process of the court. Thus, it is better to comply with the orders or take up a revision against the order with strong pleadings on the grounds which you rely upon.