A wife’s separate residence and post-divorce-filing maintenance claim do not bar interim maintenance.

The Family Court directed Gurbhajan Singh to pay his wife, Harminder Kaur, interim maintenance of ₹10,000 per month from the date of her application.

In assessing his income at ₹30,000 per month, the court relied on transactions in his bank account.

Singh challenged the order, arguing that the income assessment included a sale-deed amount, that he supported two ailing brothers, and that his wife had left the matrimonial home voluntarily and filed for maintenance after he instituted divorce proceedings.

The High Court considered whether the Family Court’s income assessment warranted interference.

1. Whether the Family Court erred in assessing the husband’s monthly income at ₹30,000 on the basis of bank transactions when fixing interim maintenance.

2. Whether the wife’s alleged voluntary separation, the timing of her maintenance application, or the husband’s claimed responsibilities toward his brothers justified setting aside the interim-maintenance order.

The Court identified the relevant considerations at the interim-maintenance stage as the relationship between the parties and the husband’s income.

It treated the wife’s status as the husband’s wife and the income assessment based on bank transactions as sufficient for the interim order, while leaving the parties’ other contentions for determination in the final maintenance proceedings.

The husband did not dispute that Harminder Kaur was his wife.

The Family Court’s assessment of his monthly income at ₹30,000 was based on bank transactions on record; the High Court therefore found no basis to interfere with that finding at the interim stage.

The Court held that the maintenance application’s filing after the divorce proceedings began and the parties’ two-year separation were not, by themselves, grounds to deny interim maintenance.

The husband’s other objections—including the wife’s alleged voluntary departure and his responsibilities toward his brothers—were matters for consideration in the final maintenance proceedings, not grounds to disturb the interim order.

It preserved the husband’s right to raise all available defences and directed that the maintenance application be decided on its merits, uninfluenced by observations in the revision order.

Any pending application was disposed of.