The Supreme Court’s guidelines on the payment of alimony to divorced women by their ex-husbands will ensure them better justice. The norms for the payment of alimony to estranged wives are important as the incidence of separation increases and most alimony women are in need and need support for themselves and their children. The norms have changed and many women have suffered due to the lack of clear and uniform rules. Many men have tried to use loopholes to reduce or delay payments. The court has issued detailed guidelines that will help many men shut down escape routes. The rules have been tightened and the implementation should be made more effective.
The court established a number of criteria for calculating the maintenance amount. This includes detailed affidavits detailing all sources of income at the time of the maintenance application. Maintenance must be paid from the date the petition is filed and this will discourage men from extending cases through various strategies. The verdict came in the case of a woman whose maintenance claim had been dragged through various courts for seven years. Because the amount of alimony is intended to be based on the partners’ financial condition and assets at the time of the petition, husbands may not dispose of some properties while the case is pending in order to pay the partner less than what some men have made. The woman’s basic needs, children’s expenses, and inflation should all be taken into account when calculating the maintenance amount. If the woman had given up her job after marriage to look after the children, the loss of that income would also be a factor.
These are welcome norms to ensure that the alimony is calculated fairly and that cases are not unnecessarily delayed. Even when standards exist, their implementation has been a problem in many cases. The court has ordered that the maintenance decree can be implemented like that of a civil court with the help of provisions used to enforce a monetary decree allowing for the attachment of property and civil detention. Hopefully these norms will ensure that many women who have been dependent on their husbands will not be deprived of their rights after the separation. The court made it clear: “Maintenance laws were enacted as a measure of social justice, in order to obtain financial support for dependent women and children and to prevent them from falling into poverty and vagabonds.” They should therefore be effectively implemented.
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