Undisclosed Income, Undone Order: How Legalfoxes Got an Ad-Interim Maintenance Award Reviewed and Reversed
The Family Court, Saket, reviews its own earlier order and dismisses the wife’s claim for interim maintenance, holding that unexplained credit entries in her bank account point to a source of income she was trying to conceal.
Court of Ms. Namrita Aggarwal, Judge, Family Court-02, South-East, Saket, New Delhi · Neha Kumari vs. Santosh Kumar Singh & Ors. · MT No. 582/2022 · Order dated 4 October 2025 · Before Ms. Namrita Aggarwal, Judge, Family Court-02, South-East, Saket
Our client, Santosh Kumar Singh, faced a claim for interim maintenance filed by his wife, Neha Kumari, before the Family Court, Saket, New Delhi, under Section 125 Cr.P.C. (now Section 144 BNSS). The parties’ marriage had been solemnised on 29 May 2019 according to Hindu rites, and no children were born of the wedlock. The petitioner’s case was that she had no income of her own and depended on her parents for her day-to-day expenses, while the respondent, she claimed, was a man of means earning close to ₹1 lakh a month from several businesses and holding ancestral property in his name. On this basis, the Court had earlier passed an ad-interim order dated 29 August 2024 directing maintenance in her favour.
When the application came up for final consideration on interim maintenance, the outcome turned entirely on whose version of the finances the Court would accept — and on what the petitioner’s own bank statement actually showed.
The Advocacy That Kept the Order in Check
Representing Santosh, Legalfoxes filed a detailed reply and income affidavit resisting the claim. The submission was straightforward: the respondent was uneducated and earned only around ₹4,000–₹5,000 a month selling earphones, remained dependent on his parents for his own expenses, and had in fact borrowed ₹2 lakh from friends and family to stay afloat. Far from being the party of means the petition described, he was shown to be the more financially stretched of the two. Turning the claim on its head, it was pointed out that the petitioner herself was a well-educated graduate with an independent source of income, as her own bank account statement revealed.
That statement became the crux of the case: it recorded credit entries of ₹10,000, ₹41,500, ₹42,000 and other amounts that the petitioner could not satisfactorily explain, offering only that these were payments made by clients of her father’s cable TV business without any explanation for why such payments would land in her account rather than his.
What the Court Held
The Court reiterated that Section 125 Cr.P.C. is welfare legislation intended to secure speedy relief for a spouse unable to maintain herself, and that, per the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rajnesh v. Neha, (2021) 2 SCC 324, an application for interim maintenance must be tested against three essential ingredients: the existence of the marital relationship, neglect or refusal to maintain despite having the means to do so, and the applicant’s genuine inability to maintain herself.
“It seems that the petitioner has an independent source of income which she is trying to conceal from the Court.”
Weighing the record, the Court found that the marriage and the absence of children were not in dispute, that the respondent’s documents showed a negligible income consistent with his case, and that the petitioner’s own affidavit confirmed she was a graduate. The unexplained credit entries in her bank statement, left uncontroverted, satisfied the Court that she had an independent source of income she had not disclosed. In view of this, and with no child to be supported, the Court held that the petitioner was not entitled to interim maintenance, dismissed and rejected her application, and reviewed the earlier ad-interim order dated 29 August 2024 that had granted it.
Why This Result Matters
For Santosh, the ruling removes a maintenance obligation that was never justified on the facts and restores parity to the record: a claimant’s bare assertion of poverty cannot survive a bank statement that says otherwise. More broadly, the order is a useful reminder that interim maintenance under Section 125 Cr.P.C. is not automatic upon marriage it requires the petitioner to genuinely lack the means to support herself, and unexplained, uncorroborated credit entries can be enough to defeat that claim, even after an ad-interim order has already been passed in her favour.
Firm Legalfoxes Advocates and Consultants
Advocate Mr. Atin Handuja, Founder Managing Partner
Email contact@legalfoxess.com
This case story is shared for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance on a specific matter, please consult a qualified advocate.