Courts Weigh Earning Capacity and Assets Together, Not Income Alone
Two people on the same declared salary can leave court with very different orders.
- Nothing owed on the flat
- Shares that can be sold
- Rent going out each month
- Nothing behind the payslip
The commonest misreading is that alimony is a share of the asset column. There is no fixed percentage. In Rajnesh v. Neha, the Supreme Court listed the criteria a court weighs, including:
- the status of the parties;
- reasonable needs;
- earning capacity;
- the standard of living during the marriage.
Net worth matters more where a lump sum is being considered, or where a party pleads inability to pay while holding substantial assets.
Income drives a monthly award.
Where declared income and visible capacity diverge, the asset column carries the weight.
A business shown at a loss while three loans are serviced and school fees are paid invites a question about the loss, not the loans. That is the point at which a schedule stops being paperwork and becomes evidence.
Statutory Basis: Section 144 BNSS and the Matrimonial Statutes
The criminal procedure route
Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 is now section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), in force from 1 July 2024.
Older orders still cite section 125, so both numbers appear in current files.
Under section 144 BNSS:
- A monthly allowanceA Magistrate may order a monthly allowance where a person with sufficient means neglects to maintain a wife, child or parent who cannot maintain themselves.
- While the application is pendingInterim maintenance and the expenses of the proceeding can be ordered while the application is pending.
- A time limit for the interim decisionAn interim maintenance application is to be disposed of, as far as possible, no later than sixty days after service of notice.
Personal law routes
Matrimonial statutes provide their own maintenance and alimony routes alongside the BNSS.
Claims often run in parallel under more than one provision.
The Rajnesh v. Neha Disclosure Affidavit
One judgment governs the paperwork in almost every maintenance matter.
- An Affidavit of Disclosure of Assets and Liabilities is to be filed in all maintenance proceedings, including those already pending.
- The formats are annexed to the judgment as Enclosures I to III.
- Later Supreme Court rulings have reaffirmed the requirement.
The affidavit is organised by head, not as a narrative.
A court therefore has both what each party holds and what flows in and out in front of it before hearing argument. What has to go on record under each head is covered in its own guide. The working behind each line is the consolidated financial picture of the party.
The judgment also set a timetable, and this is where defective affidavits cause delay:
- The reply, with the affidavitThe respondent files a reply with the affidavit no later than four weeks after.Four weeks at most
- Chances to produce itNo more than two opportunities are given to produce the affidavit.Two at most
- Where the delay comes fromAn enquiry that stalls on the affidavit is the usual reason a matter runs well past the sixty days the BNSS contemplates for interim maintenance.Past sixty days
Before the hearing
The certified position behind the claim is what a court reads before it reads the argument.
Where what the other side holds has to be traced through records rather than declared, that is a separate service: the forensic net worth certificate.
Standard of Living as a Yardstick for the Award
Standard of living during the marriage is one of the criteria Rajnesh v. Neha lists. It works as a comparison point, not a target, and it is proved with ordinary documents:
- School fee receipts
- Rent, or the home loan on the matrimonial home
- Holiday bookings and credit card statements
- Club and society dues
- Vehicles run and domestic help employed
Each of those records was created by someone else, which is what gives it weight. The party asserting a standard produces them; the party disputing it answers with a counter-record, not a denial.
The expenditure block is then read against the income block. Where outgoings exceed declared income year after year, a court asks what funds the gap. The answer is usually one of three:
- Savings being drawn downWhat can actually be realised being drawn down.
- Receipts outside the returnBusiness receipts that never reached a return.
- Support from relativesSteady support from family.
Each pushes the picture in a different direction.
Children's needs are usually assessed separately, item by item: school fees, transport, coaching, medical cover and the cost of their accommodation. That head is generally not worked out as a proportion of the spouse's figure.
Treatment of Non-Earning Spouses and Homemakers
The largest group of applicants has no salary slip at all. A homemaker's work has real economic value, and the absence of an income record is not the absence of a contribution.
- Stridhan
- Jewellery
- A flat bought in her name
- Investments funded from family money
Counting them tells the court what each side already holds before any order is made.
Earning capacity, one of the listed criteria, can be weighed on either side:
May, in some cases, be treated as able to earn again, with the court weighing the length of the gap, age and caring responsibilities.
The same reasoning runs the other way.
None of this reduces to arithmetic. It is a judgment made on a complete record, which is why the record matters more than the argument built on it. A homemaker's schedule deserves the same care as an earner's.
Revisiting an Award When Net Worth Changes
A maintenance order is not final in the way a decree is.
The changes that lead people to ask for a revision can run either way:
- Payer's sideThe payer's business failing
- Payee's sideThe payee remarrying
- Either sideA substantial inheritance
- Either sideA serious illness
Expect a court to look for a material change, not a temporary dip. The application usually goes back to the court that made the order, which compares the new position with its own earlier finding.
Because the court is comparing two positions, the second should be built on the same basis as the first. Update the earlier statement rather than redraft it from scratch; building the schedule line by line shows how.
- Fresh returns
- Audited accounts of a business
- Medical records
- A current statement of the position
Refreshing the figure is the step most applicants skip. An application supported by a stale figure invites the answer that nothing much has changed.