CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has advised the Family Courts in the State not to treat the estranged husbands as ‘armless soldiers’ while entertaining pleas for maintenance from wives and pass orders in a mechanical manner.
While arriving at the quantum of maintenance for the wife and children, the Family Court ( or Judicial Magistrate Courts concerned) have to take the entirety of the circumstances of the financial liability of the husband, whose predicament is between a devil and deep sea, Justice RMT Teekaa Raman said, recently.
The judge was passing orders on a revision petition from Sankar (name changed) challenging the orders dated November 23, 2012 of a Family Court in Chennai, directing him to pay Rs 7,000 per month towards alimony to his wife and daughter.
Sankar married Vani (name changed) in 2001 and they have a daughter. However, due to difference of opinion they got separated. Rani moved the II Additional Principal Family Court, which on May 17, 2010 directed Sankar to pay Rs 7,000 to the wife and daughter towards maintenance. Hence, the present revision petition was made. Denying the claim made by Rani before the Family Court that he was drawing a salary of Rs 45,000 per month, Sankar submitted that after all deductions, his take home pay is Rs 10,300 per month. Moreover, Rani, working as a teacher, was drawing a good salary. He has to look after his 75 year old father, he added and requested the High Court to reduce the liability.
Partly allowing the petition, Justice Teekaa Raman pointed out that Sankar, who was also the son to his father, is liable to maintain his aged parents in many cases senior citizens).
Besides, the moral obligation, there is a statutory obligation cast upon every son to maintain the parents, which also falls under the same of Sec.
125 of the CrPC and therefore, the trial court ought to have weighed the entire circumstances of the case and made a reasonable financial burden on the husband.
The judge also deprecated the lower court judge for fixing the maintenance over and above the 2/3rd of the proved income of the husband. Considering the admitted factual position, the judge held that the amount fixed by the lower court was excess. He reduced it to Rs 5,000 per month for the wife and daughter.