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BL KAK
NEW DELHI: JUNE 9: Latest legal warning: No alimony for wives who leave without a valid reason. If a woman deserts her husband on flimsy grounds, she is not entitled to a single paisa as alimony or maintenance. Calcutta High Court has just ruled in a landmark case that a wife leaving her husband “without a valid reason” should not expect any financial support from her spouse.
Justice PN Sinha passed the landmark order while squashing the verdict of a lower court directing Partha Pratim Basak to pay Rs1,700 each month to his wife Arundhoti who was not staying with him. “The petitioner (husband) will only pay Rs1,000 per month for the maintenance of the minor child. But he will not have to pay any maintenance to his wife, as she left the house on her own and did not come back even after repeated requests from her husband”, the court observed.
Legal experts say that the verdict means that if the wife leaves of her own volition “without enough reason” and refuses to live with her husband even though he is willing to live with her, she forfeits her right to maintenance. A legal expert said: “The judgment is significant as it goes against the common belief that wives automatically have the right to claim maintenance from their husbands after leaving home”.
Basak, a 31-years-old computer mechanic married Arundhati, 26, in 2000. But since last year, Arundhati started spending more time with her parents. She would take the couple's son along and did not return to her marital home in Baranagar for days. When Basak put his foot down, she allegedly told him flatly that she wanted to live in Barrackpore with her parents and not with him in Baranagar.
“Arundhati refused to return home but demanded that Partha provide her monthly maintenance. In this case, when the husband is not at fault and wants to make the marriage work, why should he be penalised?” demanded Kaushik Dey, lawyer appearing for Basak in the High Court, challenging the Barrackpore court order.
Dalia Roy, representing Arundhati, argued that it was her "fundamental righ" to choose where she wanted to live — with her parents or with her husband. But the High Court refused to buy the argument.
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