Supreme Court cuts diamond-factory owner's maintenance from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50,000

A diamond-factory owner hid his income-tax returns. The High Court punished him with a Rs 1-lakh monthly maintenance. The Supreme Court just did something unexpected.

It cut the amount in half. But in the same judgment, it did something far more consequential: it declared that a wife's right to maintenance — even unpaid arrears — sits above the claims of banks and secured creditors. A diamond factory, a house, a car — if a husband owes maintenance, those assets belong to the family first, not the lender. The Supreme Court made that the law of the land on December 10, 2024.

When the diamond-factory owner stopped paying

The story begins in Surat, Gujarat, where a husband and wife found themselves in a matrimonial dispute. The husband owned a diamond factory. The wife and two children needed money to live. The Family Court, Surat, heard the case and awarded what many would call a pittance: Rs 6,000 per month for the wife and Rs 3,000 per month for each child. Total: Rs 12,000 a month for a family of three.

The wife challenged this in the Gujarat High Court. There, the story took a sharp turn. The husband, who was an income-tax assessee (someone who files tax returns), refused to produce his income-tax documents. The High Court drew what lawyers call an "adverse inference" — it assumed the documents would have shown a much higher income. And so it dramatically increased the maintenance: Rs 1,00,000 per month for the wife and Rs 50,000 per month per child. A tenfold jump.

The Supreme Court's arithmetic

The husband appealed to the Supreme Court. His argument was simple: the amounts were excessive. He claimed business losses. The Supreme Court bench — Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan — listened. And then it did something that looks like a compromise but is actually a carefully calibrated legal move.

The Court reduced the ongoing maintenance to Rs 50,000 per month for the wife and Rs 25,000 per month per child. That's half the High Court's figure. But here is the crucial detail: the reduction applied only from the date of the High Court order. For the period before that — the arrears — the higher High Court rate would stand. The husband would have to pay the difference at the higher rate for all the months the case had been pending.

The Court also ordered that the arrears be paid within three months. And it empowered the Family Court to take coercive action — including auctioning the husband's immovable assets — if he failed to pay.

Why the court cut the amount but kept the principle

The Supreme Court's reasoning on the quantum of maintenance is worth understanding. It said that while a court can draw an adverse inference when a husband hides his income-tax returns, the quantum of maintenance must still be proportionate to the available evidence. A judge cannot simply pick a number out of thin air. Where documentary evidence is inadequate, the court can fix a reasonable amount and leave the door open for the wife to come back with better proof later under Section 127 of the CrPC (a provision that allows the court to alter maintenance amounts when new evidence emerges).

In other words: the High Court was right to punish the husband for hiding his returns. But it should have anchored the final figure to something concrete — a business valuation, a bank statement, an auditor's report. Without that, the Supreme Court felt the number was too high.

The bombshell: maintenance beats banks

But the real significance of this judgment lies not in the numbers but in the legal principle the Court laid down. The bench declared that the right to maintenance is "commensurate to the right to sustenance" — and that right is a subset of the right to dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution (the fundamental right to life and personal liberty).

Because maintenance flows from a fundamental right, the Court held, it enjoys overriding priority over the statutory rights of financial creditors, secured creditors, and operational creditors under the SARFAESI Act, 2002 (the law that lets banks seize defaulters' assets) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the law that governs corporate bankruptcy).

What this means in plain language: if a husband owes maintenance arrears, and a bank has a mortgage on his factory, the wife's claim comes first. The bank cannot take the factory and leave the family destitute. The maintenance arrears have a preferential right over the assets — even above secured creditors.

What this means for every family court in India

For practitioners, this is the single most important takeaway from the judgment. Until now, there was a lingering question: can a wife enforce a maintenance order against assets that are already mortgaged to a bank? The Supreme Court has now given a clear answer: yes. The right to maintenance, being a fundamental right under Article 21, overrides the bank's contractual rights.

This does not mean the bank loses its money. It means the wife gets paid first from the sale proceeds of the assets. The bank gets whatever is left.

THE PLAY: When filing a maintenance application, ask the court to attach the husband's immovable assets — even if they are mortgaged — because the Supreme Court has now declared that maintenance arrears enjoy priority over secured creditors under Article 21.

The walk-off

The diamond-factory owner will now pay Rs 50,000 a month instead of Rs 1 lakh. But the woman who fought him — and every woman who will fight after her — now carries a judgment that says her right to eat is more important than a bank's right to collect.