The new guidelines were issued by the court for matrimonial cases, which shall be applicable in Protection of women from domestic violence act, 2005; Hindu marriage act, 1955; Section 125 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Hindu Adoption and Maintenance act, 1956; Special Marriage act, 1954; Indian Divorce act, 1869; Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 and Guardians and wardship act, 1890.

The court had the opinion that parties try to hide the information or give incomplete information which is crucial for deciding the matrimonial case. Therefore they modified rules for the income affidavit in matrimonial cases. In case parties do not furnish complete and correct information then the court will appoint the officer for examining the standard of living or status of the party. This requirement can be dismissed in the case of the party of lower strata because that creates inconvenience and doesn’t serve any fruitful result.

NEW DIRECTIONS: 

• Maintenance is not only a legal right but also a human right. A person claims this for their better living standard, needy person makes so many efforts to get it but some litigants come to the court with unclean hands, blatant lies and claim maintenance before the court. To get complete and correct information, the court decided to make these changes. If still, litigants try to hide information then the court can appoint a local officer.
• The court also mentioned the speedy disposal of maintenance applications.
• The court expected judges to use a humanistic approach while deciding the matter of maintenance.
• The court also mentioned the importance of section 24, 25, 26, 27 of the Hindu marriage act, 1955 briefly while the modification of the rules.
• Section 106 of the evidence act read in conciliation with section 10 of the family court act which enables the court for making a necessary finding in the affidavit furnished by the parties for maintenance.
• Section 165 of the evidence act enables the judge to put question and order for production of evidence for ascertaining any information given by the parties in the affidavit during the maintenance proceeding.
• Section 165 of the evidence act read with section 30 of the code of civil procedure deals with the power to order for discovery.
• An employed person required to disclose the information regarding his salary, commissions, incentives, bonus, expenses, etc in the affidavit.
• A self-employed person required disclosing the source of his income, employees working under him, sharing in the business, income tax, the net worth of business and other information must be mentioned in the affidavit.
• The parties also need to disclose their income from other sources like agricultural lands, mutual funds, profit on the sale of the property, rents, etc in the affidavit.
• The parties are required to disclose their assets like the loan, foreign investment, insurance policy, the brand of the mobile, electronic gadgets, laptop, property, etc in the affidavit.
• The party should disclose their standard of living like how many credits or debit cards they have, house expenditure, food expense monthly expenses, brand of car, brand of mobile phone, medical expense, travel expense, etc in the affidavit.