The Delhi High Court has ruled that when a wife fails to produce her recent salary slips, courts may draw an adverse inference against her claim for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The decision rested on whether the wife had satisfactorily proved her inability to maintain herself, which is a key condition for being granted maintenance. In this case, the Family Court had denied maintenance to a wife while directing the husband to maintain their daughter. The Family Court’s denial of maintenance to the wife was based on findings that she concealed her actual income and did not provide her most recent salary certificate. The evidence before the lower court included a salary slip from December 2016 showing a salary of ₹33,052, whereas the wife claimed that her current income was only ₹10,000 per month. The wife also asserted that her services had been terminated and that she was currently employed as a temporary teacher under the Government of Uttar Pradesh, earning a low income; however, she was unable to furnish a recent salary certificate or salary slips to substantiate this.
On appeal, the Delhi High Court observed that the wife had several opportunities to place her recent salary certificate before the Family Court but failed to do so. The bench held that she did not offer any plausible explanation for withholding those salary details, which created reasonable doubt as to the genuineness of her claimed income. Justice Dr. Swarana Kanta Sharma noted that because the primary requirement of demonstrating inability to maintain oneself was not established through clear and reliable evidence of financial hardship, the wife’s claim was speculative and could not be sustained. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Family Court’s decision denying her maintenance.
Regarding the maintenance awarded to the daughter, the husband had challenged it as excessive. The High Court rejected this challenge, holding that the quantum awarded—amounting to roughly one‐third of the husband’s income—was not excessive in the given circumstances. The Court emphasized that a child’s right to maintenance is independent of disputes between parents and that the legal scheme of Section 125 Cr.P.C. is intended to avert destitution and vagrancy of wives and children, imposing on a father a legal and moral duty to support children.
Thus, in sum, the High Court held that failure by the wife to produce up‐to‐date pay evidence—despite opportunities—and absence of credible proof of current income can justify the denial of her maintenance claim, while the maintenance awarded to the child was upheld as appropriate.
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