Below is a question on Quora site which I had answered quite a while back.
Question: On what grounds or ways could a husband avoid alimony in India?
Quora moderators deleted my answer to above assuming it’s not helpful or ‘spammy’ filled with sales links etc. Since they can’t appreciate why a ‘spammy’ answer like mine had more upvotes (22 Upvotes) and views (41k Views) than other more selfless answers, I have decided to reproduce the question and my (now deleted) answer below. Let readers decide themselves what they find useful and what they find as spammy! It’s not easy to reply to such wide and generic questions with a few sentences and hope to enlighten the reader, hence I had tried to reply generously giving ‘spammy’ links to my books, and other articles on the subject.
My Answer below (deleted on quora now):
Update 19/05/2017: Alimony (and property) related gyan is now available in my book: Alimony and Maintenance under Hindu Law (only in Kindle Edition)
The question tends to presume that the husband is close to or sure about getting a divorce in the first place, which is a wrong assumption. Read my post below if you want to file divorce on wife.
Why Indian men should be very careful in filing divorce – Men Rights India
Now it’s very difficult to get a divorce in India on ground like cruelty or desertion (for either spouse, you can read my book to gain full perspective), and assuming the husband has some irrefutable proof of wife’s adultery etc, he may be able to negotiate a divorce (mutual consent) with wife without going through trial (but in practice many wives file IPC 498A/DV case etc on husband to divert from their own wrong), but anyway that’s not the scope of this question.
Having also written a book on how to reduce/avoid maintenance (under CrPC 125, DV Act, and the same principles can be used for pendente lite maintenance under Sec 24 HMA), I can extrapolate the reasoning judges will use to decide on how much alimony. The mindset in India doesn’t consider it normal, necessary, or ideal for married women to do paid work, so in general judges will not tend to think “if alimony”, but “how much alimony”, so onus will be on husband to reduce it or make it zero.
Following factors will be useful to reduce/deny alimony by husband:
- Wife has good income through business/job. The longer the job/business, the better. The lesser (or zero) breaks in the job, the better.
- There are no child(ren). Many men when going through bad marriage seem to forget they have fathered a child or two with the wife, and given most men are not too keen on having child custody (based on my experience handling calls as MRA, they usually want the wife and child together as a package); a child being there would mean not only wife’s need/right to have child’s future needs secured, but also sympathy factor for her since she will be alone taking care of child from then on.
Following factors will make it more difficult/or impossible to deny alimony by husband:
- Wife had worked before marriage but left work either after marriage or after having a child/children.
- Wife had never worked either before or after marriage.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, however I am reachable for consultation via Man to Man Solutions