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 the husband Varun Gopal’s father and deposit the money in a fixed deposit to pay maintenance to his wife Shilpi Srivastava.
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 received a monthly maintenance of Rs 1 lakh from her husband from a family court in Bilaspur.
She also later pressed charges of cheating against her husband and his family, prompting Varun to file for anticipatory bail.
When anticipatory bail was denied to Varun, 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 appealed at 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 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.
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 also 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.
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.
“The maintenance order 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 said,
“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.
Thus, the Supreme Court has directed the Registrar of the Delhi High Court to sell six shops in a building complex belonging to the husband Varun Gopal’s father and deposit the money in a fixed deposit to pay maintenance to his wife Shilpi Srivastava.
