Wife Can’t Be Denied Maintenance Just Because She Had A Job Before Childbirth: Delhi HC

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Last Updated:May 14, 2025, 19:43 IST

The tribunal said: "...the work of caregiving to a insignificant falls disproportionately upon the genitor with custody, often limiting their quality to prosecute full-time employment."

The petitioner-husband contended that the respondent-wife is highly qualified and was moving arsenic a schoolteacher. (Representative/Shutterstock)

The Delhi High Court has held that a pistillate cannot beryllium denied interim attraction simply connected the grounds that she is educated and was antecedently employed, if she had to springiness up her occupation owed to the responsibilities of caring for a insignificant child.

The single-judge seat of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma made the reflection portion proceeding a revision petition filed by the hubby against an bid of the Family Court directing him to wage interim attraction to his estranged wife.

The petitioner-husband contended that the respondent-wife is highly qualified and was moving arsenic a schoolhouse teacher, earning betwixt Rs 40,000 to Rs. 45,000 per month, including income from tuition.

On the contrary, the woman submitted that she is presently incapable to enactment owed to her responsibilities arsenic the sole caregiver of their insignificant lad and that her earlier employment cannot beryllium utilized arsenic a ground to contradict maintenance.

The counsel for the pistillate argued that the responsive had to springiness up her teaching occupation due to the fact that of agelong commute hours and the lack of occupation opportunities adjacent her residence. Without household support, she was incapable to negociate some her employment and the responsibilities of single-handedly raising her child.

Justice Sharma observed, “This tribunal finds the mentation some tenable and justified. It is good settled that the work of caregiving to a insignificant kid falls disproportionately upon the genitor with custody, often limiting their quality to prosecute full-time employment, particularly successful cases wherever determination is nary household enactment besides to instrumentality attraction of the kid portion the parent is astatine work. In specified circumstances, the cessation of employment by the responsive cannot beryllium viewed arsenic voluntary abandonment of work, but arsenic a effect necessitated by the paramount work of kid care."

In enactment of its reasoning, the tribunal relied connected the Supreme Court’s ruling successful Rajnesh v. Neha & Anr. (2021), which recognised that the determination of a qualified pistillate to forgo employment to attraction for the household indispensable beryllium duly considered portion deciding maintenance.

The tribunal noted that the woman was antecedently employed arsenic a impermanent teacher, but had to discontinue owed to the applicable challenges of managing enactment and childcare arsenic a azygous parent.

The tribunal upheld the household court’s attack successful granting attraction lone for the play aft the woman near her job, having correctly assessed the husband’s notional income; a practising advocate, for the applicable period.

However, it took enactment of the information that the Family Court had not examined the petitioner-husband’s income affidavit oregon slope statements portion determining the quantum of maintenance. “This Court is truthful of the considered sentiment that the learned Family Court has committed nary mistake successful appreciating the factual matrix and applying the close ineligible principles, including the ratio laid down successful Shailja v. Khobbana: (2018) 12 SCC 199, wherein the Honourable Supreme Court had held that specified capableness to gain is not the aforesaid arsenic really earning, and being susceptible of earning unsocial is not a valid crushed to trim maintenance," the Court observed.

The justice added, “It is not the imaginable earning capableness of the woman but her existent income astatine the applicable clip that is to beryllium considered portion determining the magnitude of maintenance. Thus, the learned Family Court has rightly observed that determination exists a worldly favoritism betwixt being ‘capable of earning’ and ‘actually earning’."

Accordingly, the Court remanded the substance backmost to the Family Court for a caller appraisal of the interim attraction application, directing that the petitioner-husband shall proceed to wage interim attraction arsenic antecedently ordered, pending further proceedings.

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