Overview
- The Bombay High Court raised the monthly maintenance from ₹50,000 to ₹3.5 lakh and directed a ₹42 lakh deposit within four weeks for the 12-month period beginning November 1.
- Justices B.P. Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan called the husband’s declared ₹6 lakh annual income “farcical,” noting a family real estate and finance empire valued at over ₹1,000 crore.
- The court cited lifestyle and transactional evidence, including luxury parties, foreign travel, Kenzo-branded clothing, and transfers exceeding ₹10 crore to his brother.
- The judges said the wife and daughter are entitled to a dignified standard of living, factoring inflation and education needs, and criticized attempts to curb the daughter’s extracurricular classes.
- Married in 1997 and separated in 2013, the couple’s 2023 Pune family court divorce order set ₹50,000 maintenance, which the wife appealed for enhancement as the husband’s plea to reduce it was rejected.