`Court should consider duty towards parents'
Do not treat husbands like “armless soldiers“ and order them to pay maintenance to wives in a `mechanical manner', the Madras high court counselled family courts. A man is a son to his parents and is liable to maintain his aged parents as well, it said, adding that family courts should not brush this aspect aside and go to the extent of ordering him to pay even twothirds of his income to his estranged wife.
Justice R M T Teekaraman, pointing out that a family court had directed a man earning `10,500 a month to pay `7,000 to his wife and child, said he would be left with just `3,500 to maintain himself and his aged father. “While awarding the maintenance in favour of wife and children, the court should take into consideration his responsibility to look after his aged parents.“ While awarding the maintenance in favour of wife and children, the court should take into consideration his responsibility to look after his aged parents, since the husband has been fastened with statutory objections to look after and maintain not only his wife but also his parents under the very same Section 125 of CrPC.“
Slamming the attitude of the family court which awarded more than 23rd of his income to the wife and child, the judge said such an order needed to be deprecated. A son's obligation to his parents could not be taken lightly , he said, adding: “ Besides the moral obligation, there is a statutory obligation cast upon every son to maintain his parents.Therefore, the trial court ought to have weighed the entire circumstances and placed reasonable assessment financial burden on the shoulder of the husband.“
While calculating the maintenance package for the wife and children, family courts must take the entirety of the circumstances to finalise the husband's fi nancial liability , the judge said. “By the award under challenge, the trial court has awarded 3,500 for each petitioners by totalling 7,000, leaving only 3,350 to the husband for the maintenance of himself as well as his ailing father. The situation of the present petition case is analogous to a person caught between the devil and the deep sea. He has to maintain the wife and children. He has also to maintain his father under very same Section, failing which he has to face the proceedings, if initiated by the parents,“ he added.
The case relates to a petition filed by Varadharajan who got married in February 2001 in Mayiladuthurai, and had a daughter in February 2003. Claiming that he had been neglecting her and their daughter, his wife moved a Chennai court seeking maintenance the two. She claimed her husband, as manager of a Trichy company , earned about `45,000 a month. After Varadharajan proved that he neither worked in such a company nor was his monthly income about `45,000 as stated by his wife, the HC reduced the monthly maintenance payable by him to his wife to `2,500.
Do not treat husbands like “armless soldiers“ and order them to pay maintenance to wives in a `mechanical manner', the Madras high court counselled family courts. A man is a son to his parents and is liable to maintain his aged parents as well, it said, adding that family courts should not brush this aspect aside and go to the extent of ordering him to pay even twothirds of his income to his estranged wife.
Justice R M T Teekaraman, pointing out that a family court had directed a man earning `10,500 a month to pay `7,000 to his wife and child, said he would be left with just `3,500 to maintain himself and his aged father. “While awarding the maintenance in favour of wife and children, the court should take into consideration his responsibility to look after his aged parents.“ While awarding the maintenance in favour of wife and children, the court should take into consideration his responsibility to look after his aged parents, since the husband has been fastened with statutory objections to look after and maintain not only his wife but also his parents under the very same Section 125 of CrPC.“
Slamming the attitude of the family court which awarded more than 23rd of his income to the wife and child, the judge said such an order needed to be deprecated. A son's obligation to his parents could not be taken lightly , he said, adding: “ Besides the moral obligation, there is a statutory obligation cast upon every son to maintain his parents.Therefore, the trial court ought to have weighed the entire circumstances and placed reasonable assessment financial burden on the shoulder of the husband.“
While calculating the maintenance package for the wife and children, family courts must take the entirety of the circumstances to finalise the husband's fi nancial liability , the judge said. “By the award under challenge, the trial court has awarded 3,500 for each petitioners by totalling 7,000, leaving only 3,350 to the husband for the maintenance of himself as well as his ailing father. The situation of the present petition case is analogous to a person caught between the devil and the deep sea. He has to maintain the wife and children. He has also to maintain his father under very same Section, failing which he has to face the proceedings, if initiated by the parents,“ he added.
The case relates to a petition filed by Varadharajan who got married in February 2001 in Mayiladuthurai, and had a daughter in February 2003. Claiming that he had been neglecting her and their daughter, his wife moved a Chennai court seeking maintenance the two. She claimed her husband, as manager of a Trichy company , earned about `45,000 a month. After Varadharajan proved that he neither worked in such a company nor was his monthly income about `45,000 as stated by his wife, the HC reduced the monthly maintenance payable by him to his wife to `2,500.
