Spouse with earning capacity can’t sit idle: Delhi High Court

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The Delhi High Court has observed that a spouse who has a reasonable capacity to earn but chooses to remain unemployed and idle without sufficient explanation should not be permitted to saddle the other partner with the one-sided responsibility of meeting expenses by providing maintenance.

The high court made the observation while reducing the amount of monthly maintenance from Rs 30,000 to Rs 21,000 to be paid by a man to his estranged wife under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA). It said the woman claimed to have no independent source of income but has a reasonable educational background being a graduate from Delhi University. She appears to have voluntarily undertaken social work as claimed despite there being no impediment to undertaking meaningful employment.

"The spouse with a reasonable capacity of earning but who chooses to remain unemployed and idle without sufficient explanation or indicating sincere efforts to gain employment should not be permitted to saddle the other party with one-sided responsibility of meeting out the expenses," a bench of Justice V Kameswar Rao and Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said.

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