Justice Dhingra held as follows
From Para 4,
4. A perusal of Domestic Violence Act shows that Domestic Violence Act does not create any additional right in favour of wife regarding maintenance. It only enables the Magistrate to pass a maintenance order as per the rights available under existing laws. While, the Act specifies the duties and functions of protection officer, police officer, service providers, magistrate, medical facility providers and duties of Government, the Act is silent about the duties of husband or the duties of wife. Thus, maintenance can be fixed by the Court under Domestic Violence Act only as per prevalent law regarding providing of maintenance by husband to the wife. Under prevalent laws i.e. Hindu Adoption & Maintenance Act, Hindu Marriage Act, Section 125 Cr.P.C – a husband is supposed to maintain his un-earning spouse out of the income which he earns. No law provides that a husband has to maintain a wife, living separately from him, irrespective of the fact whether he earns or not. Court cannot tell the husband that he should beg, borrow or steal but give maintenance to the wife, more so when the husband and wife are almost equally qualified and almost equally capable of earning and both of them claimed to be gainfully employed before marriage. If the husband was BSc. and Masters in Marketing Management from Pondicherry University, the wife was MA (English) & MBA. If the husband was working as a Manager abroad, the wife with MBA degree was also working in an MNC in India. Under these circumstances, fixing of maintenance by the Court without there being even a prima facie proof of the husband being employed in India and with clear proof of the fact that the passport of the husband was seized, he was not permitted to leave country, (the bail was given with a condition that he shall keep visiting Investigating Officer as and when called) is contrary to law and not warranted under provisions of Domestic Violence Act.
From Para 5,
5. We are living in an era of equality of sexes. The Constitution provides equal treatment to be given irrespective of sex, caste and creed. An unemployed husband, who is holding an MBA degree, cannot be treated differently to an unemployed wife, who is also holding an MBA degree. Since both are on equal footing one cannot be asked to maintain other unless one is employed and other is not employed. As far as dependency on parents is concerned, I consider that once a person is grown up, educated he cannot be asked to beg and borrow from the parents and maintain wife. The parents had done their duty of educating them and now they cannot be burdened to maintain husband and wife as both are grown up and must take care of themselves.
From Para 6,
Sanjay Bhardwaj and Ors Vs The State and Anr on 27 August 20106. It must be remembered that there is no legal presumption that behind every failed marriage there is either dowry demand or domestic violence. Marriages do fail for various other reasons. The difficulty is that real causes of failure of marriage are rarely admitted in Courts. Truth and honesty is becoming a rare commodity, in marriages and in averments made before the Courts.
Citations: [2010 DRJ 118 385], [2010 DLT 171 644], [2010 RCR CRI 7 1287], [2010 AD DEL 7 615], [2011 CIVCC 1 209], [2010 DMC 2 574], [2010 SCC ONLINE DEL 2912], [2011 ILR DEL 1 58],
Other Source links: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56090d69e4b0149711179b26
G Reddeppa says:
i need the complete judgment in the case of Sanjay Bhradwaj vs Thestate 2012 DMC (DElhi)
ShadesOfKnife says:
I don’t have it.