HC says 'no' to mechanical orders for award of maintenance

Holding that a man has moral and statutory obligations to take care of his parents as well, the Madras High Court has said that award of maintenance to his estranged wife should not be mechanical.
A bench of Justice RMT Teekaa Raman, in one of its recent orders, said the maintenance award should rather be computed after weighing the circumstances in its entirety.
The matter relates to a revision plea by one Varadharajan against a Family Court order directing him to pay his wife and a minor child Rs 3,500 each per month as maintenance.
After hearing the plea, Justice Raman said the attitude of the family court awarding more than two-third of the proven income as maintenance should be deprecated.

Moral obligation apart, there is also a statutory obligation on a man to maintain his parents under Section 125 of the CrPC, he noted.
Hence, the trial court ought to have weighed the entire circumstances to have a reasonable assessment of the financial burden on the shoulder of the husband, he said.

The marriage between the petitioner and his wife took place in 2001 and a child was born in 2003. Alleging that her husband was neglecting her, she filed a petition before a court here seeking maintenance for herself and her daughter.
She had averred that her husband was drawing a salary of Rs 45,000 and working for a well-known private sector company at Tiruchirapalli.

Disputing this, the petitioner claimed he was working in a private company for a salary of Rs 8,000 and he also had to maintain his ailing 75-year-old father.
Justice Teekaa Raman said the maintenance awarded by the trial court was exorbitant.
The maintenance award was hence modified to Rs 2,500 instead of Rs 3,500 per month for the wife and the child as the husband had to maintain himself and his father.