High Court ignored husband's rental income, inheritance; Supreme Court restores Rs 1.75 lakh maintenance

She quit her job after marriage. He's a cardiologist with rental income, a joint venture, and an inheritance coming. The High Court gave her Rs 80,000 a month. The Supreme Court asked: "Where's the rest?"

On a November morning in 2024, two judges of the Supreme Court compared two orders on the same case. The numbers did not match. The family court had awarded Rs 1.75 lakh per month. The High Court had slashed it to Rs 80,000. The difference was not about law. It was about what counts as income.

The wedding, the job she left, and the divorce

In 2008, a cardiologist married a woman under Christian customs in Chennai. He already had a son from a previous marriage. She had a job. After the wedding, she quit. The marriage produced no children. By 2019, the relationship had broken down. The husband filed for divorce, citing cruelty and incompatibility.

During the divorce proceedings — still pending — the wife needed money to live. She filed an application under Section 36 of the Indian Divorce Act, 1869 (the provision that allows a court to order interim maintenance — temporary financial support — while a divorce case is ongoing). She asked for Rs 2.5 lakh per month.

Her case was simple: her husband was a cardiologist. But his income did not stop at his hospital salary. He owned rental properties in Cochin and Chennai. He had a joint venture with a builder. He was the sole heir to his father's estate — an inheritance that would eventually come to him. And he ran a school. She had given up her own career after marriage. The standard of living she had enjoyed in the matrimonial home was the standard she was asking the court to preserve.

What the Family Court saw

The Family Court in Chennai looked at the husband's entire financial picture. It did not glance at his salary slip alone. It considered his properties, his rental income from multiple sources, his business interests, his inheritance prospects, and his overall asset portfolio. After evaluating all of it, the court awarded Rs 1.75 lakh per month as interim maintenance.

That order was passed on June 14, 2022. The husband was not happy. He appealed to the Madras High Court.

How the High Court cut it down

The High Court took a different approach. It looked at the husband's hospital salary. It looked at half the rental income from one property. And it applied what is known in family law as the one-third formula — the rough rule of thumb that a spouse's maintenance should be about one-third of the other spouse's income.

On that calculation, the High Court reduced the maintenance to Rs 80,000 per month. It simply ignored the rest: the other rental properties, the joint venture, the school ownership, the inheritance that was waiting. The court's order, dated December 1, 2022, partially allowed the husband's appeal.

The wife now had a problem. She had quit her job. She was living through a divorce. And the court that was supposed to protect her had cut her monthly support by more than half.

The question that reached the Supreme Court

Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. The wife wanted her Rs 1.75 lakh restored. The husband cross-appealed, asking for an even further reduction. The case — Dr. Rajiv Verghese v. Rose Chakkrammankkil Francis — landed before a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prasanna B. Varale.

The legal question was narrow but consequential: When a court calculates interim maintenance, which income sources must it consider? Only the salary and one rental property? Or everything — every property, every business, every inheritance prospect — that the Family Court had already found?

The Supreme Court's answer

The Supreme Court's answer was emphatic. The High Court had erred, the bench held, by selectively considering only some income sources while ignoring others that the Family Court had already identified. The Family Court had done the hard work of evaluating the husband's entire financial position. The High Court had undone that work by applying a narrow lens.

The court laid down two principles that will now guide every interim maintenance case under the Indian Divorce Act.

First, all income sources count. Salary, rental income from all properties, inheritance prospects, business interests, and the overall asset portfolio — every source of financial capacity must be considered. A court cannot pick and choose which sources to include and which to ignore.

Second, a wife who sacrificed her employment after marriage is entitled to maintain the standard of living she enjoyed in the matrimonial home. The court said that during the pendency of divorce proceedings, she is entitled to enjoy the same amenities of life as she would have been entitled to in the matrimonial home. The fact that she quit her job at the husband's behest — or at least in the context of the marriage — does not mean she must now live on less.

The cardiologist will now pay

The judgment, dated November 19, 2024, restored the Family Court's order of Rs 1.75 lakh per month. The husband's cross-appeal was dismissed. The message to High Courts across the country was unmistakable: when a Family Court has done a thorough evaluation of all income sources, do not second-guess it by ignoring half the picture.

For practitioners, the ratio (the court's central reasoning) is straightforward. When arguing interim maintenance, the burden is on the spouse seeking maintenance to place on record every income source of the other spouse. But once the Family Court has found those sources, the High Court cannot selectively disregard them. The one-third formula is a guideline, not a straitjacket — and it applies to total income, not partial income.

THE PLAY: When calculating interim maintenance, list every income source — salary, rental income from all properties, business interests, inheritance prospects, and asset portfolio — and argue that the Family Court must consider all of them, not just the most obvious one.

The cardiologist will now pay Rs 1.75 lakh a month. The wife who quit her job will not have to live on half of what the Family Court thought she deserved. And every High Court in the country has been told: look at the whole picture, not just the part that fits the formula.