Supreme Court sends man to 3-month jail for not paying Rs 2.60 Crore upkeep arrears to estranged spouse

The Supreme Court has sentenced a person to 3 months’ imprisonment for contempt of court docket after he didn’t pay an impressive of Rs 2.60 crore together with Rs 1.75 lakh month-to-month upkeep to his estranged spouse.
The prime court docket mentioned the husband has already been given an extended rope and he has not utilised the probabilities given to him to pay the upkeep to his estranged spouse.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian mentioned in a latest order, “We have already given (the respondent) a long rope. The respondent (husband) has not utilised the chances so given. Therefore, we punish the contemnor/respondent for committing contempt of this court and sentence him to imprisonment for a period of three months in civil prison.”
The prime court docket famous that the husband has not complied with its order of February 19, giving him a final alternative to pay your entire excellent upkeep quantity together with the month-to-month sum fastened earlier by the court docket.

On February 19, the highest court docket had mentioned a husband can’t abdicate the duty of paying upkeep to his estranged spouse and gave a final alternative to the husband, failing which he can be imprisoned.
The man, who claimed to have been engaged on a venture of nationwide safety within the telecom sector, had mentioned that he had no cash and sought two years’ time to pay your entire quantity.
The prime court docket had mentioned that the person has misplaced credibility by failing repeatedly to comply with the court docket’s order and puzzled how an individual with this sort of case was related to a venture of nationwide safety.
It had instructed the person, a Tamil Nadu resident, that “husband cannot abdicate from his responsibility to provide maintenance to his wife and it is his duty to provide the maintenance”.

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It had famous that the person has been directed by the trial court docket and the choice upheld by the highest court docket and the excessive court docket to pay cash to his spouse below two heads which embody month-to-month upkeep of Rs 1.75 lakh and the opposite is the previous arrears of upkeep from 2009 which quantities to roughly Rs 2.60 crore.
The prime court docket had mentioned to his counsel that the husband has not complied with even a single order of courts and if he doesn’t make the funds inside two-three weeks, he will probably be despatched to jail.
The spouse had filed a case below the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act earlier than the metropolitan Justice of the Peace court docket in Chennai in 2009.
The court docket had allowed the spouse to share the home till the husband made different preparations for her everlasting residence.
It had directed the husband to pay Rs 2 crore as upkeep to the spouse; Rs 50 lakh compensation for deserting her for 12 years; Rs 50 lakh for residing in additional marital life; Rs 50 lakh for leaving his spouse to face the court docket instances; Rs 50 lakh for forcing her to take a job in a media firm; Rs 50 lakh for psychological torture and agony by overtly residing with international girls, and Rs 50 lakh for not paying hire to the shared family.

On the enchantment filed by the husband towards the order, the classes court docket directed him to pay Rs 1 lakh per thirty days in the direction of upkeep from the date of submitting the petition which is January 6, 2009 and Rs 75,000 per thirty days for residential lodging from the mentioned date.
The excessive court docket upheld the order of the classes court docket on December 2, 2016, after which the husband filed the enchantment within the prime court docket, which was dismissed by the highest court docket on October 26, 2017 with a path that inside six months he would pay the upkeep and arrears.

Thereafter a evaluation petition was filed in 2018 by the spouse and the husband was directed to clear the arrears of upkeep Rs 1.75 lakh by the tenth day of each month.