The Supreme Court has ruled that a divorced wife cannot seek permanent alimony solely to attain financial parity with her ex-husband. Highlighting a concerning trend in matrimonial disputes, the Court noted that maintenance or alimony should not be treated as a tool for “equalizing wealth between the parties.”
While a wife is entitled to maintenance that reasonably reflects the standard of living, she had in the matrimonial home, the husband is not obligated to provide support based on his current financial status. The Court stressed that a husband’s post-separation financial growth does not entitle the divorced wife to claim higher alimony.
“We wonder, would the wife be willing to seek an equalisation of wealth with the husband if due to some unfortunate events post-separation, he has been rendered a pauper?” the Court asked.
A bench comprising Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice NK Singh voiced their concerns in the following words:
“We have serious reservations with the tendency of parties seeking maintenance or alimony as an equalisation of wealth wit the other party. It is often seen that parties in their application for maintenance or alimony highlight the assets, status and income of their spouse, and then ask for an amount that can equal their wealth to that of the spouse. However, there is an inconsistency in this practice, because the demands of equalisation are made only in cases where the spouse is a person of means or is doing well for himself. But such demands are conspicuously absent in cases where the wealth of the spouse has decreased since the time of separation. There cannot be two different approaches to seeking and granting maintenance or alimony, depending on the status and income of the spouse.
The law of maintenance is aimed at empowering the destitute and achieving social justice and dignity of the individual. The husband is under a legal obligation to sufficiently provide for his wife. As per settled law, the wife is entitled to be maintained as far as possible in a manner that is similar to what she was accustomed to in her matrimonial home while the parties were together. But once the parties have separated, it cannot be expected of the husband to maintain her as per his present status all his life. If the husband has moved ahead and is fortunately doing better in life post his separation, then to ask him to always maintain the status of the wife as per his own changing status would be putting a burden on his own personal progress.”
The Court was addressing the matter of permanent alimony following the dissolution of a marriage considered irretrievably broken.
The petitioner (wife) claimed that the respondent (husband) owned assets worth ₹5000 crores in the US and had previously paid ₹500 crores as alimony to his first wife.
Expressing surprise, the Court observed that the petitioner sought to match her financial status not only with the respondent but also with his former spouse. Ultimately, the Court set the permanent alimony at ₹12 crores.
“The Court has to not just consider the income of the respondent-husband here, but also bear in mind other factors such as the income of the petitioner-wife, her reasonable needs, her residential rights, and other similar factors. Thus, her entitlement to maintenance has to be decided based on the factors applicable to her and not depend on what the respondent had paid to his ex-wife or solely on his income,” the judgment stated.
The Court noted in its judgment that disputes over alimony amounts often become the most contentious aspect of marital proceedings, frequently involving numerous allegations to reveal the other party’s income and assets. The judgment cited the principles laid down in Kiran Jyot Maini vs. Anish Pramod Patel (2024) and Rajnesh vs. Neha (2020).
