The Kerala High court on Thursday observed that husbands claiming maintenance from their divorced wives should not be entertained as it would make them lazy.
The court was deciding on a petition filed by VM Divya, challenging the ruling of Kasaragod family court’s order to give a maintenance of Rs 6000 per month to her estranged husband Sivaprasad.
Divya had approached the family court seeking divorce on grounds of domestic violence.
Her husband though claimed that he had lost his job after his marriage, as some rumours about him spread.
He also claimed that his wife is working as a lecturer in a college earning a monthly salary of Rs 50,000. So, he sought Rs 15,000 as monthly maintenance and the family court directed the wife to pay Rs 6,000 as maintenance, The New Indian Express reports.
However, the High Court observed that Sivaprasad had no physical disabilities to work and was also deriving income from musical programmes.
Though Sivaprasad claimed that he was not getting any income from his musical programmes, he couldn’t prove it in court.
"If such an attitude has been taken by the Courts, then idleness of husbands will be promoted and they will be tempted not to do any work and depend on the wife for their livelihood, and such thing is not expected to be promoted in the society and that was not the intention of Section 24 of the Act providing maintenance to either party to the proceedings. It was intended to support only such spouse who is really incapable of maintaining himself/herself to get something for their sustenance and to conduct the litigation which they were forced to face from the other party to the proceedings who is capable of supporting the other spouse and nothing more," the High Court said, as per a report in The Times of India.