Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday ruled that a husband cannot seek the shield of insolvency proceedings to escape his legally mandated obligation to pay maintenance to his wife.
A single-judge bench of justice Jitendra Jain held that maintenance payments arise from a moral and personal duty, and are not a debt that can be dissolved by bankruptcy law.
The court dismissed an insolvency petition filed by a Mumbai-based man, Mehul Jagdish Trivedi, who sought to be declared insolvent after failing to pay a monthly maintenance of ₹25,000 to his wife, as directed by a family court in May 2021. The arrears, according to the petitioner, had…