Cuttack, Nov. 2: Orissa High Court has ruled that joblessness cannot be a ground for a husband to deny payment of maintenance or permanent alimony to wife.

The court said leaving a job and joining law course could not absolve a husband of his responsibility towards wife.

The ruling came on a marital dispute petition that one Sandhyarani Satpathy, 33, filed challenging the Berhampur family court order delivered on May 18 last year.

The family court had dissolved Sandhyarani's marriage with Sachikanta Rath, 42, by a decree of divorce but had made no order for permanent alimony and did not record any reasons for it.

The high court opined that the family court had "committed gross error" in its judgment.

Sandhyarani claimed that she was unemployed and depended on her old father for food and other basic needs. Her husband Sachikanta was serving as a vocational teacher at the time of their marriage. Later, he left the job and joined the LLB course to avoid payment of maintenance to her, Sandhyarani alleged while seeking direction for payment of Rs 15 lakh in permanent alimony.

Sachikanta, however, refused to pay permanent alimony to his wife on the plea that he was unemployed and an LLB student. Sachikanta argued that he did not have a livelihood and depended on his parents for food and day-to-day needs. The court, however, felt that "it is a lame excuse and not acceptable".

"If the husband is able bodied and mentally sound, he cannot take a lame excuse of losing his job or pursuing LLB course to avoid payment of maintenance and/ or permanent alimony to his wife, who is a destitute and unemployed," the division bench of Justice Vinod Prasad and Justice K.R. Mohapatra ruled.

"Moreover, he has his old parents and being a son, he has the responsibility to maintain and look after them and he has also the onerous duty to look after the entire family," the court observed.

"Accordingly, we direct that Rs 7,50,000 shall be paid by the husband to the wife within a period of four months in two equal instalments. On failure of payment of instalment in time, the amount shall carry interest @ 10 per cent per annum and the wife will be free to take recourse to law for realisation," the bench said in its October 27 judgment, a full text of which is in possession of The Telegraph.

Earlier, the high court had in an interim order ordered for partition of half of Sandhyarani's in-laws' house in her favour as she had no shelter. The husband had moved the Supreme Court against the order. The Supreme Court had imposed restriction on the order, but asked the husband to pay Rs 3,000 per month from May as interim maintenance to his wife till disposal of the case by the high court. The husband had since been paying the interim maintenance.

Taking note of it, the high court felt it appropriate to assess the maintenance to the wife at Rs 4,000 per month as "just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case" and compounded the same for 15 years making the permanent alimony at Rs 7.5 lakh.