The Karnataka High Court ruled that the deductions towards PF contributions, house rent/furniture recovery, LIC premium etc. from salary cannot be considered for assessing the maintenance amount under section 125 Cr.P.C.

The bench of Justice Hanchate Sanjeev Kumar observed, “…deductions from the salary of petitioner/husband, those are provident fund contribution, house rent recovery, furniture recovery, towards loan obtained by the petitioner/husband, LIC premium and festival advance, these are all deductions accruing to the benefit of petitioner only. These amounts cannot be made deductible while considering for assessment of maintenance amount.”

In this case, the Petitioner approached the High Court against the order passed by the Family Court on the ground that the maintenance amount granted to the wife and child is excessive.

Admittedly, the salary of Petitioner is above 1 lakh. However, as per the Counsel for the Petitioner Advocate Vishwanath Kanavi, his take-home salary is around 77 thousand after deductions. Hence, was unable to pay the maintenance amount of ₹15,000 and ₹10,000 to the wife and child respectively.

The High Court noted that in case of artificial deductions the Court has to consider the entire evidence on record on all its preponderance of probabilities while awarding quantum of maintenance amount.

The Court held thus while noting that in the present case, compulsory amounts to be deducted are income tax and professional tax and the Petitioner deducted the exorbitant amount just to negate giving maintenance to wife and child.

The Court while noting that deductions such as PF contribution, house rent recovery, etc. cannot be considered while calculating the salary observed, “If this is allowed, then in every case of petition filed under Section 125 of Cr.P.C. there would be tendency by the husband to create artificial deductions making an attempt to show lesser take home salary with an intention to mislead the Courts in order to negate to give maintenance or an attempt to award to make lesser amount of maintenance.”

As per the Court, above mentioned deductions will ultimately accrue to the benefit of the husband only. Hence, it cannot be the ground to award a lesser quantum of maintenance.

Consequently, the Court dismissed the petition.

Cause Title: Y.G. Rajesh v. M. Ramya (Neutral Citation: 2024:KHC:5501)

Appearance:

Appellant: Adv. Vishwanath Kanavi

Respondent: Adv. Narasimha Murthy K

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Karnataka High CourtJustice Hanchate SanjeevkumarSection 125 CrPCMaintenance

Tanveer Kaur