Husband's ITR said Rs 4.5 lakh. Court said real income Rs 24 lakh.

His income tax return showed just Rs 4.5 lakh a year. But the family court saw something else—and ordered him to pay Rs 50,000 a month.

The Supreme Court of India agreed. Sharply.

In Kiran Tomar & Ors v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr., a bench of Justice Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli delivered a judgment that every family lawyer—and every spouse in a maintenance battle—needs to read. The question was simple: can a husband hide behind his income tax return when his wife asks for maintenance?

When the family court saw through the numbers

The wife, Kiran Tomar, and her two daughters filed a petition under Section 125 of the CrPC (the provision that allows a wife and children to claim monthly maintenance from a husband or father who refuses to support them). The Family Court at Gautambudh Nagar did not just read the tax return. It examined the husband's lifestyle, his assets, his spending patterns. The ITR document lay on the table—a thin, official-looking form with numbers that seemed too neat, too tidy for a man who lived as he did. The courtroom was quiet, the air thick with the smell of old case files, as the judge weighed the paper against the life it claimed to represent.

The court concluded that the husband's real income was around Rs 2 lakh per month—despite his ITR showing barely a fourth of that. It ordered him to pay Rs 20,000 per month to the wife and Rs 15,000 per month to each daughter. A total of Rs 50,000 a month. The order was typed, signed, and stamped. The wife and daughters left the court with a piece of paper that felt heavier than its weight.

The husband did not like that number. He filed a criminal revision (a challenge to the order) before the Allahabad High Court.

The High Court's one-paragraph reversal

The High Court set aside the family court's order in what the Supreme Court would later call a "cursory" reasoning—a single paragraph that took less than a minute to read aloud. Its logic was straightforward: the income tax return showed Rs 4.5 lakh per annum. The family court had no basis to assess income at Rs 2 lakh per month when the tax return said otherwise. The order was gone. In the courtroom, the silence that followed was heavy; the wife and daughters sat motionless as their maintenance vanished with the judge's final word. The file was closed with a soft thud, and the family walked out into the corridor, their legal victory erased by a few lines of text.

The wife and daughters appealed to the Supreme Court.

Why the Supreme Court called the High Court wrong

The Supreme Court did not mince words. The High Court, it held, had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of maintenance proceedings. Income tax returns, the bench said, do not necessarily furnish an accurate guide of a party's real income—especially in matrimonial disputes. The judges leaned forward, their eyes fixed on the papers before them, as they dismantled the High Court's reasoning line by line.

Here is the key insight: when a marriage is breaking down, the spouse who earns money has a powerful incentive to show less of it. Under-reporting income to the tax department is one thing; under-reporting it to a family court to avoid paying maintenance is another. The family court, the Supreme Court said, must determine real income on a holistic assessment of all evidence—not just the ITR. The court must look at the whole picture: the spouse's business, property, lifestyle, and any evidence of hidden income. A husband who drives a luxury car and lives in a large house cannot claim poverty because his tax return shows a modest figure.

The High Court, in exercising its revisional jurisdiction (its power to review the family court's decision for legal errors), had substituted its own view without engaging with the family court's reasoning. That was not its job. A revision is not a fresh trial. The High Court should have asked whether the family court's finding was based on evidence, not whether it would have reached the same conclusion.

The Supreme Court's judgment was not merely a reversal—it was a lesson in judicial restraint. The High Court had exceeded the parameters of revisional jurisdiction, the bench noted, by failing to engage with the evidentiary basis on which the Family Court arrived at its finding. The one-paragraph order, the Supreme Court implied, was not a judgment at all—it was a dismissal dressed in legal language.

The conditional remand: a practical hammer

Rather than simply restoring the family court's order, the Supreme Court chose a middle path. It set aside the High Court's order and sent the revision back for a fresh hearing—but with teeth.

The husband was ordered to pay all arrears (the maintenance he had not paid while the case was pending) by 31 December 2022. If he failed, the revision would stand dismissed automatically. He was also directed to pay the continuing monthly maintenance by the 7th of each month from November 2022 onward. The file, when the order was dictated, felt thin in the hands of the court officer—but its weight was immense for the family waiting outside. The wife and daughters, who had been living on hope and borrowed money, now had a deadline that worked in their favour.

This conditional remand is a clever piece of judicial engineering. It gives the High Court a second chance to hear the case properly, but it protects the wife and daughters from the grinding delay that often kills maintenance claims. The husband cannot drag his feet; the price of delay is the loss of his right to challenge the order. The Supreme Court had turned the procedural clock into a weapon for the vulnerable.

What this means for every maintenance case

For practitioners, the ratio (the court's central reasoning) is clear: an ITR is a starting point, not a ceiling. The family court must look at the whole picture—the spouse's business, property, lifestyle, and any evidence of hidden income. A husband who drives a luxury car and lives in a large house cannot claim poverty because his tax return shows a modest figure.

For spouses seeking maintenance, this judgment is a shield. If the other side waves an ITR and says "this is all I earn," the answer is now written in Supreme Court precedent: the court is not bound by that number. The judgment has practical consequences: it means that family courts must now be more vigilant, more probing, more willing to look behind the numbers. It also means that husbands who understate their income face a higher risk of being caught, and a higher cost when they are.

The judgment also clarifies the scope of revisional jurisdiction. The High Court, the Supreme Court held, is not a court of appeal in maintenance matters. It cannot substitute its own view for that of the family court merely because it disagrees with the conclusion. It must engage with the family court's reasoning and the evidence on record. This is a significant check on the power of the High Court to overturn maintenance orders without proper analysis.

For the legal system, the message is broader: in matrimonial disputes, the search for truth must go beyond official documents. The ITR is a piece of paper; the reality of a spouse's income is often written in the details of daily life—the car they drive, the house they live in, the school their children attend, the trips they take. The family court must read all of it.

THE PLAY: In any maintenance proceeding under Section 125 CrPC, the family court must assess real income holistically—an income tax return is evidence, not a verdict.

The Supreme Court ended where it began: with a husband who said he earned Rs 4.5 lakh, and a family court that knew better. The judgment stands as a reminder that in the courtroom, as in life, the truth is rarely found in a single document.

Procedural journey at a glance

• Family Court — Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, District Gautambudh Nagar (11 March 2022): Maintenance of Rs 50,000/month granted to wife and two daughters.
• High Court (Revision) — High Court of Judicature at Allahabad (10 August 2022): Family Court order set aside in a one-paragraph order.
• Supreme Court (Appeal) — Supreme Court of India (31 October 2022): Appeal allowed; High Court order set aside; revision restored with conditional directions.

Legal provisions engaged

• Section 125, CrPC — Order for maintenance of wives, children and parents. The court interpreted this provision to require a holistic assessment of real income, not mere reliance on income tax returns.
• Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 — General reference. The court applied this provision in the context of the minor daughters' maintenance.

Ratio decidendi

• Income tax returns do not necessarily furnish an accurate guide of the real income of a party in maintenance proceedings under Section 125 CrPC. Where parties are engaged in matrimonial conflict, there is a tendency to underestimate income, and the Family Court must determine real income on a holistic assessment of the evidence.
• The High Court exercising revisional jurisdiction is not justified in setting aside a Family Court's maintenance order merely because the assessed income exceeds the amount disclosed in the income tax return, without engaging with the evidentiary basis on which the Family Court arrived at its finding.

Operative order

The appeal is allowed. The impugned order of the High Court dated 10 August 2022 is set aside. Criminal Revision No. 1670/2022 is restored to the file of the High Court conditional on the second respondent paying all arrears by 31 December 2022, failing which the revision shall stand dismissed. Continuing monthly maintenance to be paid by the 7th of each month from November 2022.