Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay was dealing with a husband’s plea challenging the grant of maintenance to his wife.
The husband’s primary argument was that his wife was disentitled from claiming any maintenance as she is “living in adultery”.
In this regard, he placed reliance on printouts of Instagram chats alleged to have taken place between her and an advocate, with whom she is allegedly in an adulterous relationship.
However, the Court said that the husband has to prove a continuous “adulterous lifestyle” of his wife to deny maintenance to her.
It said that Instagram chats were not sufficient to establish the alleged adultery.
Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay was dealing with a husband’s plea challenging the grant of maintenance to his wife. The husband’s primary argument was that his wife was disentitled from claiming any maintenance as she is “living in adultery”. In this regard, he placed reliance on printouts of Instagram chats alleged to have taken place between her and an advocate, with whom she is allegedly in an adulterous relationship.
However, the Court said that the husband has to prove a continuous “adulterous lifestyle” of his wife to deny maintenance to her. It said that Instagram chats were not sufficient to establish the alleged adultery.
“Even if, for the sake of argument, the contents of the unverified chats were to be perused, mere text messages on a social media platform, without corroborative evidence of physical intimacy or cohabitation, are thoroughly insufficient to legally establish that the wife is continuously "living in adultery",” the Court said.
