Doctor’s maintenance challenge ‘luxurious litigation’, Karnataka HC imposes Rs 2 lakh costs

The Karnataka High Court has dismissed a doctor’s petition challenging an order directing him to pay Rs 1.10 lakh per month as interim maintenance to his estranged wife, describing the proceedings as “luxurious litigation” that wasted valuable judicial time.

Justice Lalitha Kanneganti also imposed costs of Rs 2 lakh on the petitioner-husband, directing that the amount be paid to his estranged wife. The court said the judicial process was intended to resolve genuine legal grievances and should not be used by parties to settle their “ego”.

Court questions challenge

The dispute arose from an interim maintenance order passed by a Family Court in favour of the woman, who is also a doctor. Her husband subsequently approached the High Court challenging the order.

One of the grounds raised by the husband was that the couple’s son was not entitled to maintenance. The High Court, however, found that the Family Court had awarded the Rs 1.10 lakh monthly interim maintenance only to the wife and had not granted maintenance to the child under the order being challenged.

“The petitioner/husband has no patience to even look at the order, where the maintenance is only granted to wife. This is a fit case to impose costs for wasting the judicial time,” the High Court said.

The court said such use of judicial proceedings deserved to be deprecated. “Such use of judicial proceedings deserves to be deprecated, where the valuable time of the court is wasted. This is nothing but luxurious litigation,” it observed.

Both are doctors

The couple married on November 11, 2022, under the Special Marriage Act and have a son, who currently lives with his mother.

According to the High Court order, the woman said she had earlier been employed as a prosthodontist but had resigned because of health problems and the difficulty involved in travelling around 50 km every day. She claimed she was currently earning approximately Rs 35,000 a month through professional consultations.

Her counsel, advocate Satyen Bajaj, submitted that the husband was a “very famous doctor” with two clinics in Bengaluru and one clinic each in Goa, the Maldives and London.

The husband contested her claim for maintenance on the ground that she was a highly qualified medical professional capable of supporting herself. He argued that she held a postgraduate medical qualification, had around 15 years of professional experience and had the capacity to earn at least Rs 2 lakh per month.

Assets under scrutiny

While dismissing the husband’s petition, the High Court left it to the Family Court to closely examine the financial disclosures made by both sides.

It directed the Family Court to scrutinise the statements of assets and liabilities filed by the husband and wife and take appropriate action if it found that either party had suppressed material facts.

Both sides have also been permitted to produce further evidence and documents before the Family Court. This includes additional material that had been placed before the High Court during the proceedings.

The direction assumes significance because the income and financial position of both spouses are central to the dispute over the quantum of interim maintenance.

Supreme Court guidelines

The High Court also directed the Family Court to act in accordance with the Supreme Court’s directions in Rajnesh vs Neha if any suppression was detected in the statements of assets and liabilities.

In the 2020 judgment, the Supreme Court laid down guidelines intended to bring greater consistency to maintenance proceedings and required parties to make detailed disclosures of their income, assets, expenditure and liabilities.

The Karnataka High Court made it clear that the Family Court could initiate appropriate proceedings if scrutiny of the declarations revealed suppression of material financial information by either side.

Dismissing the writ petition, the High Court ordered the husband to pay Rs 2 lakh as costs to his estranged wife, while leaving the Family Court to consider additional evidence and examine the financial declarations of both parties in the underlying matrimonial proceedings.