The Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled that a wife loving someone else is not adultery unless there is a physical relationship. Dismissing a husband’s claim to deny maintenance, the Court emphasized that adultery means sexual intercourse. It upheld Rs 4,000 interim maintenance, rejecting the husband’s arguments about low income and his wife’s alleged earnings from a beauty parlour.
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Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court said that if a wife loves someone else but does not have a physical relationship with him, it does not count as adultery.
Justice GS Ahluwalia made it clear that adultery means there must be sexual relations.
Because of this, the judge did not accept a husband’s argument that since his wife loved another person, she should not get maintenance.
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The Court referred to Section 144(5) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and Section 125(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which say that maintenance can be denied only if it is proved that the wife is “living in adultery.”
“Adultery necessary means sexual intercourse. Even if a wife is having a love and affection towards somebody else without any physical relations, then that by itself cannot be sufficient to hold that the wife is living in adultery,”
-the Court said in its judgment on January 17.
The Court was hearing a case where a husband challenged a family court’s order that asked him to pay Rs 4,000 per month as interim maintenance to his wife. The husband said that he works as a Ward Boy and earns only Rs 8,000 per month.
He also said that his wife was already getting Rs 4,000 under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, and therefore, giving another Rs 4,000 as maintenance under Section 125 of CrPC was too much.
However, the Court found that the husband’s salary certificate was not properly verified.
“In the said certificate, the place of issuance and date of issuance are not mentioned. Therefore, unless and until that salary certificate is duly proved by the authorities who has issued the same, it is difficult for this Court to rely on the said certificate at this stage.”
The Court also noted that the man did not say that he was physically unfit to work.
“Meager income of the husband cannot be a criteria to deny maintenance. If the applicant has married a girl knowing fully well that he is not competent to even fulfil his own daily needs then for that he himself is responsible but if he is an able bodied person then he has to earn something to maintain his wife or to pay the maintenance amount,”
-the judge stated.
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The husband also claimed that his wife was earning money by running a beauty parlour, but the Court did not accept this argument.
“The applicant has not filed any document to show that the wife of the applicant is having any property where she can run a beauty parlour. The applicant has not filed any document to show that how much money she is earning from that beauty parlour. The matter is yet to be decided by leading evidence. Mere bald submission that wife is running a beauty parlour is not sufficient to deny interim maintenance to her, specifically when no document has been filed to show that either the wife of the applicant is running a beauty parlour in a shop owned by her or in a shop taken by her on a rent,”
-the Court said.
The husband further claimed that he had lost his family property and had been removed from it, but the Court did not believe him. It said that he was still staying with his father and that the notice of dispossession seemed to be fake.
The Court also suspected that the notice might have been created based on legal advice.
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Regarding the maintenance amount, the Court emphasized that a wife has the right to maintenance under every law.
“Since the court below has taken note of the maintenance awarded to the respondent under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act therefore, it cannot be said that the trial court committed a material illegality by awarding interim maintenance @ Rs.4,000,”
-the Court ruled.
As a result, the Court dismissed the husband’s petition.
The petitioner was represented by Advocate Vitthal Rao Jumre.
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