DV case: Court denies maintenance to wife for lying about job

A Delhi court has taken away from a woman the maintenance amount of Rs 15,000 per month awarded to her by her estranged husband after finding that she had "mischievously concealed" her job as a government school teacher and claimed to be unemployed.

Special Judge Virender Bhat rejected the appeal of the woman seeking enhancement of the maintenance amount and allowed the man's appeal to set aside the magisterial court's 2009 order by which she was given the monetary relief.

"It needs to be noted here that the woman has very conveniently and mischievously concealed and withheld from the trial court the factum of her employment as government teacher..." the judge said.

The court noted that she had approached the trial court after the Supreme Court had in 2013 given her the liberty to do so. The woman had knocked the doors of the apex court in 2011 after her husband secured from the Delhi High Court the relief of not paying her in 2010.

"In her petition filed pursuant to the liberty given to her by the Supreme Court, she has stated herself to be unemployed and having no source of income except the maintenance being given to her by her husband in terms of the judgment dated September 24, 2009.

"The trial court shall deal with this aspect while deciding the woman's petition under D V Act and pass appropriate orders against her with regards to the said concealment of material facts," the special judge said in his order.

The woman had filed a complaint under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act against her husband and his three brothers which was disposed off by the trial court on September 24, 2009 with a direction to the husband to pay Rs. 15,000 per month to her as maintenance for her food, clothing, medical expenses and alternate rented accommodation.

In his appeal against the magisterial court order, the man had claimed that