Marriages are made in heaven they say but unfortunately many married couples go through hell.
One such case involving Varun Gopal and Shilpi Shrivastava has just been decided -- in the wife's favour. In this case, the Supreme Court has directed the Registrar of the Delhi High Court to sell six shops in a building complex belonging to Varun’s father and deposit the money in a fixed deposit to pay maintenance to his wife Shilpi.
The directive came after Shilpi, a native of Chhattisgarh, approached the court seeking nearly Rs 1.25 crore in arrears from her husband, who separated from her around eight years ago after a two-year marriage. Varun married again in Australia after getting an ex-parte divorce in that country. He has two kids from his second marriage.
Two years after the split, the woman won monthly maintenance of Rs 1 lakh from her husband from a family court in Bilaspur.
She also later started criminal proceedings related to cheating against her husband and his family, prompting Varun to file for anticipatory bail. When anticipatory bail was denied to the husband, he refused to attend hearings about maintenance payments in India.
However, Varun’s father Mohan Gopal was arrested in connection with the criminal proceedings initiated by Shilpa and spent ten months in jail in 2018-19.
The next year, she got the Chhattisgarh High Court to raise the maintenance amount to Rs 1.27 lakh, arguing that Varun was earning Rs 4.25 lakh per month and that she deserved 30% of it.
She successfully argued that the sum of Rs 1 lakh a month was not “befitting to the status, the respondent had enjoyed, when she was living with the applicant [husband].”
The case again reached the Supreme Court when the wife could not obtain the maintenance of Rs 1.27 lakh per month and the arrears.
The wife asked the Supreme Court to transfer several of the shops owned by the father-in-law to her name so that she can live off the rent generated by them.
She argued that if she had got Rs 1.25 crore as arrears of her maintenance, she could have got “Rs 60,000-65,000 per month as an interest” and a rent of Rs 55,000 from the gym located on the first floor of the father-in-law’s building.
The wife also pointed out that her in-laws and husband had gone back on his word to transfer to her Rs 1.29 crore as arrears.
During the hearing in the Supreme Court, the father-in-law argued that he was not responsible to pay maintenance to his son’s wife, and that a previous settlement was signed with his wife (the mother in law), and not with him.
“..the maintenance order [was obtained] only against her husband which can be recovered from the husband or from his assets. The [father-in-law] is not personally liable to [his wife] when her husband is alive,” he argued.
However, Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar would have none of it.
“The present case – as discussed earlier, has displayed persistent defiant conduct by Varun Gopal, and the petitioner, Mohan Gopal, who have, through one pretext or another stalled compliance with the orders of this court. It is the responsibility of the petitioner and Varun Gopal who are held liable to fulfil the payment of entire sum,” they said.
Meanwhile, there are some who have taken objection to the way the courts meted out justice to the woman.
"While given the facts of the case, this judgment by Supreme Court seems fair but it sets a wrong precedent of allowing attachment of property belonging to in-laws in settlement of matrimonial disputes," said Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj, a journalist and film-maker who has studied criminal cases arising out of matrimonial disputes extensively.
She pointed out that the marriage lasted only for 2 years, and that the litigation has been going on for several years.
"An educated woman is claiming she is dependent on her widowed mother. There is no child born out of wedlock. So the question is if such high amount of maintenance is justified," she said.
At the same time, Bhardwaj said that, from the judgment, it looks like the husband and his family have defied several orders and a previous settlement made to wife.
"So the Court has used it's supreme powers to grant remedy. The question, however, remains if such arrangements are justified by law and also, can the courts start punishing parents of a man if his marriage fails," she said.
